Women’s Hockey: No. 10 Terriers Don’t Miss a Beat in Weekend Sweep of Penn State
By Daniel Multz
UNIVERSITY PARK — After earning their first two wins in Hockey East last weekend, the Boston University Terriers (5-1-1, 2-1-1 WHEA) defeated the Penn State Nittany Lions (3-4-3) 5-2 and 5-1 in a weekend sweep.
BU scored right away with a goal from junior Kristina Schuler 22 seconds into the game. Seven minutes later, BU co-captain Sammy Davis put one in for her fourth of the season. Later on in the second period, Penn State cracked onto the board with a shorthanded goal from senior forward Madison Brooke.
After two periods it was 2-1 BU, but the scoring was far from over. 90 seconds into the third period, senior defender Abby Cook scored her second goal of the season to put BU up by two. After a power-play goal by Rachel Weiss to close the lead to 3-2, BU added two more goals at the end of the period.
After Nara Elia’s power-play goal, her first of the season, and a goal from Kaleigh Donnelly right at the end, BU walked away with the 5-2 victory.
“We were resilient, stayed on the task and got the key goals to pull away yesterday,” said head coach Brian Durocher after Friday’s win.
The next night, BU once again jumped out to a 2-0 lead after the first with a power-play goal from freshman Julia Nearis and a goal from senior Deziray de Sousa. Penn State once again put a goal on the board in the second with a goal from their points leader: senior Kate McMillan.
After McMillan’s goal, BU put up three more from three familiar faces in this series: Nearis, Donnelly and Cook. This put BU up 5-1 and that was the final. All told, BU earned 27 points across the roster over the weekend to extend their winning streak to four-straight games.
Durocher spoke very highly of the three aforementioned skaters by highlighting the great depth they’ve added to BU’s offensive attack with their abilities to handle power play. Further, he added that there were “a lot of really solid performances . . . both goalies played well, the defense did a real nice job and many contributions up front.”
Although the offense may have shined brightest this weekend, Corrine Schroeder and Kate Stuart each played one game this weekend and looked incredibly sharp. The two goalies saved 40 of 43 total shots between the two of them (93 percent) and came up with many big saves
“Both times, the goalies made big saves when we needed them. Today [Stuart] had a real solid game, and I was excited for her to say the least [and] I think her teammates were too.” Schroeder has stayed on a great streak of performances while Stuart had a great bounce back after a tough game against UNH,” Durocher continued.
Next up for the Terriers is a Friday marquee in-conference matchup against No. 3 Northeastern, while the Nittany Lions will open up College Hockey America play on Friday against Robert Morris University.
BU faces a tall task next weekend, but Durocher is confident that this weekend was a huge confidence builder for his squad heading into a weekend series against the Huskies.
“You want to have people feeling good about themselves offensively,” Durocher said. “You want to have the team feeling that they know how to win.”