By: Jarett Leonard<\/p>\n
Two third period tallies pushed #6 Boston College past Boston University 3-2 on Monday night and into the Women\u2019s Beanpot championship for a fifth consecutive year.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlaying in a tournament to be the best in Boston is something you want to do every year and to get to that final game is great,\u201d BC head coach Katie Crowley said. \u201cI think the Beanpot is an unbelievable tournament. All four teams are great teams and every year for the last 10 years or so it has been a battle every game, no matter which team you\u2019re playing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Down 2-1 in the final frame, an unfamiliar spot for BC, sophomore Makenna Newkirk and freshman Caitrin Lonergan reversed the Terriers\u2019 one goal advantage to lift the defending champion Eagles to the Beanpot final.<\/p>\n
With 7:49 gone in the third, junior Kenzie Kent fed Newkirk, who walked off the half wall and fired a wrist shot that rang off the crossbar and in for the tying power play goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we were doing a great job with the power play controlling the puck,\u201d Newkirk said. \u201cKenzie Kent made a great play, held it for an extra second, and froze the defenseman. We had great net front presence and a lane just opened to the net so I shot it in the house.\u201d<\/p>\n
BU responded well after allowing the goal but was unable to regain the lead. Then, with less than three minutes remaining, junior Megan Keller\u2019s shot was blocked down, but, in the words of BU head coach Brian Durocher, the puck was \u201cput on a tee\u201d for Lonergan and she drove it right down the middle for the game winner.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to compliment Boston College, they did a good job in the third period when they had to put pressure on,\u201d Durocher said. \u201cWe might have been back on our heels just a little. I think people were trying, they were working, they were doing the right things We finish off the last 30 seconds of that PK it might have been a different game.<\/p>\n
BC struck first just 1:17 into the contest when Newkirk finished a 2-on-1 rush with Lonergan. Even after finding themselves in an early hole, the Terriers calmed a bit and slowly swung momentum in their favor.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought the first period we tried to do too much,\u201d Durocher said. \u201cThere were too many soft, throw it in the middle passes. After that we did a lot of indirect stuff that time after time got us out of harms way and created offense and created a big second period.\u201d<\/p>\n
Junior Nina Rodgers was the beneficiary of a rebound goal after shots from senior Sarah Steele and sophomore Sammy Davis were turned away. Rodgers had the puck bounce right to her tape at the top of the crease and buried the power play goal before BC junior goaltender Katie Burt could slide across.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were shooting the puck well and we were getting shots through,\u201d Rodgers said. \u201cI got the rebound and had an empty net and luckily just put it away.\u201d<\/p>\n
It only took two minutes before BU would gain the lead on another power play. Junior Victoria Bach\u2019s shot was stopped by Burt, and with graduate student Mary Parker jamming at the loose puck, it came free for a tap in by senior Maddie Elia. BU carried a 2-1 lead into the third period but failed to bring that same momentum from the second.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told them going into the third that hockey is a funny game,\u201d Durocher said. \u201cThe third period is not a guarantee just like the second unless you make it that way. BC turned the tables a little bit in that third period.\u201d<\/p>\n
For BU, an unfortunate streak of Beanpot semifinal losses continued. The Terriers dropped their first game for the fifth straight year, the last win a 5-2 defeat of Harvard in 2012, and will have to wait another year for a chance at the school\u2019s first championship as a varsity program.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been the best team in this tournament, we\u2019ve probably been the worst team in this tournament and we\u2019ve been somewhere in the middle,\u201d Durocher said. \u201cWe just can\u2019t seem to get it done. The couple times we\u2019ve been in the finals we didn\u2019t get it done and we\u2019ve ended up losing in the semifinals in some great hockey games.\u201d<\/p>\n
BC will meet Northeastern, the second semifinal winner, in the Beanpot final as the Eagles look to repeat as champions. BU and Harvard will play in the consolation on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. at Northeastern\u2019s Matthews Arena, with the championship game set to follow at 7:30\u00a0p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By: Jarett Leonard Two third period tallies pushed #6 Boston College past Boston University 3-2 on Monday night and into the Women\u2019s Beanpot championship for a fifth consecutive year. \u201cPlaying in a tournament to be the best in Boston is something you want to do every year and to get to that final game is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17192,"featured_media":3364,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1041],"tags":[1510],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7699"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17192"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7699"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20535,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7699\/revisions\/20535"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}