Women’s Hockey: Six Years Later, BU and BC Meet Again in the Semifinals

Featured image by Holly Gustavsen

By Lydia Murray

After six years without a playoff win, No. 2 Boston University Women’s Ice Hockey (21-11-2, 18-7-2 HE) is back in the Hockey East Semifinals. They’ll face off against their archrivals, the No. 3 Boston College Eagles (21-12-2, 16-9-2 HE), who they also saw in their last trip to the semifinals, a 5-1 loss in 2019.

The two clubs faced off three times in the regular season, with the Terriers going 2-1-0. They fell in overtime to the Eagles, 3-2, at Agganis Arena in the first game before rallying for a 3-1 win at Conte Forum the following day. Most recently, BU secured a 3-2 victory over BC in January at Walter Brown Arena.

It was a rocky road for the Terriers to the semifinals. Prior to this past weekend, they had not won a high-stakes game all year, falling to the Northeastern University Huskies in the Beanpot Final and missing out on three chances to claim the Hockey East regular-season title. They then never led against the University of Vermont Catamounts in the quarterfinals, but they stuck together and came out with an overtime win, much to the pride of their coach.

“Proud of the group,” BU Head Coach Tara Watchorn said on a Tuesday media call. “Getting it done, obviously, is a big deal to get a playoff win. I know it’s been a long time for the program, but in general, everyone’s fighting for their life when you get to this time of the year. Obviously I thought we played well and played to the game plan, and Vermont kept themselves in it, it was a unique game that way. But the fact that we’ve found a way to win, we’ll take that experience with us.”

This will be the first time the Terriers have hosted a semifinal game since 2017, a 2-1 loss to the Northeastern University Huskies. They have not advanced to the championship since 2016 (a 5-0 loss to BC), and have not claimed a title since 2015 (4-1 win over BC).

Winning an NCAA playoff game is uncharted territory for most of BU’s players, with only Maeve Carey and Lindsey Bochna having done it before. Carey won the NEWHA championship with Stonehill College in 2024 after losing in the semifinals in 2023, while Bochna’s Providence College Friars fell in the Hockey East championship in 2021 and 2023. Watchorn mentioned that they’ve been leaning on those two, and particularly Bochna, over the past few weeks.

“I think you look at our move for many, many reasons with adding Lindsay to our leadership group formerly, that is one of them,” Watchorn said. “She’s shown it all year, just the composure and consistency to her game and the ability to balance compete and composure at the same time… It’s something that we’re constantly pushing the envelope to make sure that we’re ready, even without the formal experience. But you’re going to lean on the ones that have had it.”

Meanwhile, the Eagles have a much more experienced playoff team, and they’ll be hungry for a chance to claim their first Hockey East title since 2017. This is their third straight semifinal appearance, although they have not gone further since 2019. All but the seven freshmen on their 27-player roster were on the team last year.

Despite their experience, the Eagles also did not have an easy time getting here. They narrowly topped the No. 6 University of Maine Black Bears at Conte Forum, 4-3. The Black Bears hopped out to a lead early in each of the first two periods and then tied it up at three just a few minutes after BC took its first lead of the night. However, once the Eagles took the lead again late in the second, they held down the fort to secure the victory.

While playing BC does not make this game any extra important for them, Watchorn acknowledged it does make it more fun.

“I think that’s what we’ve come to understand,” Watchorn said. “We get excited. The girls know a lot of them, it’s a fun game…when both our teams are playing well in Hockey East, So, it just makes for a fun rivalry, but I think the game’s weight doesn’t change.”

Watchorn said her team’s focus this week has been simple: just keep building on the things that have made them successful all season.

“It kind of naturally comes full circle,” Watchorn said. “Sometimes I like to take credit that I pre-planned some of this stuff as a coach, when you think about our tactics and roll out throughout the year, but we really have naturally honed in on defense creating offense for a big chunk of the season. And now it’s depending on how you play offense, [it] leads to better defense because you have the puck. And so when you think about where you’re in the zone and how you play off the puck, and how you anticipate for rebound scoring, you’re also anticipating recovering them if they’re not going in. And the more you have pucks, and the more you win those races and puck battles, the more that they don’t have it.”

Watchorn ended the media call by saying the main things her team needs to do to advance to the championship are to keep calm and solve problems as they come.

“They have to solve problems every shift, every period, and remove all emotion from it,” Watchorn said. “It’s something that we’ve been working on all year. Tactically, we’re ready. We know how we play–physically, connected, purposeful–but at the same time, you never know how it’s going to go. [They need to] derive confidence from how they’re creating their environment, how they’re debriefing, how they’re trying to create, how they’re being curious, and I think we [will] carry that mentality into this game with us.”

The Terriers and Eagles will face off with a trip to the championship game on the line at Walter Brown Arena on Wednesday night. Puck drop is set for 6 p.m. ET, and you can find the game on ESPN+.