As the ninth week of the NC Women's Hockey season wraps up, the games just get tighter and the play just gets better. It was finally back to some non-conference play as Syracuse visited North Dakota, while teams in Hockey East and the WCHA continued to battle it out for that elusive top-spot. Check out the best stories of the week below.
[divider]OFFENSIVE PERFORMANCE OF THE WEEK[divider]
Minnesota celebrates a goal against Bemidji State. Photo courtesy of University of Minnesota Athletics.
In front of a crowd of over 2,000 fans, second-ranked Minnesota hosted WCHA rival Bemidji State in the rout of a lifetime.
The Gophers held Bemidji off the board entirely while they recorded four goals on 51 shots, giving Beavers goaltender Brittni Mowat all she could handle.
In the first period, neither team managed to score, despite a total of 25 shots on goal. Mowat turned aside all 14 that she faced, while Gophers netminder Sidney Peters faced the most shots she would face all game with 11.
It wasn’t until just past the midway point of the second that Minnesota’s Dani Cameranesi managed to put one past Mowat, giving her team a power-play tally as well as the lead.
Minnesota found its stride entering the third, putting up three more goals in just under ten minutes of play. Kelly Pannek notched her sixth goal of the season to give her team a 2-0 lead. Cameranesi tallied another lamplighter with five minutes left in the contest. Then, Kate Schipper put the icing on the cake with a power-play tally at 17:16.
In the third, Minnesota recorded 24 shots on goal, finally overpowering Mowat, who made 21 saves in that period alone. That’s more than Peters made in the entire game (18).
“I thought we played a complete hockey game here tonight against a real good team,” Minnesota head coach Brad Frost told his team’s website, adding that the Gophers were “really happy” with the victory.
[divider]DEFENSIVE PERFORMANCE OF THE WEEK[divider]
Princeton visited Boston University on Friday with hopes of halting their losing skid. And try, they did. The Tigers did everything they could to get their offense going, unloading 42 shots on Boston University’s Victoria Hanson. But unfortunately for the Tigers, Hanson stood strong in net.
Hanson turned aside 41 out of 42, including a perfect 20-save performance in the first period, during which time the Terriers scored twice-over, putting the Tigers in a two-goal hole.
Princeton managed to get on the board early in the second with Sylvie Wallin’s power-play tally just 0:39 into the period, but that was the last heard from the Tigers’ offense as Hanson doubled down.
The Terriers were held off from scoring again until late in the third, where they tallied two goals in the final two minutes of regulation. Four different BU players tallied goals in the outing. Samantha Sutherland notched the game-winner, her second such tally this season. The Terriers beat the Tigers, 4-1.
[divider]UPSET OF THE WEEK[divider]
Going into the weekend, no one thought that seventh-ranked North Dakota might get shut out at home by a team with just four wins to seven losses on the season. But that’s exactly what happened when Syracuse came to visit.
The contest began quietly, with both teams going scoreless for much of the first. Finally, with just over two minutes to go in the opening period, Syracuse’s Lindsay Eastwood tallied the game-winning power-play goal. This was just the second time this season she has found the back of the net.
It wasn’t until midway through the second that the Orange lit the lamp again, when Heather Schwarz notched her first goal of the contest. Schwarz, who leads her team in goal-scoring with 7, iced the game in the final minute of regulation with an empty-netter. The Orange won, 3-0.
North Dakota’s netminder Lexie Shaw totaled 13 saves in the contest, while Syracuse’s Abbey Miller made 19 saves to record her third blanking of the season.
“It was a nice win for our program today,” Syracuse head coach Paul Flanagan told his team’s website. “The team showed a ton of heart with 28 blocked shots, some timely scoring and many big saves by Miller to secure the shutout.”
[divider]GAME OF THE WEEK[divider]
In the only top-ten matchup of the week, tenth-ranked Northeastern visited sixth-ranked Hockey East rival Boston College at home. The game started slow, with both goaltenders keeping the score tied at 0-0 for the entire first and much of the second.
It wasn’t until 16:48 in the second that the Eagles finally got on the board off of an Erin Connolly tally. They took the lead into the final period, but that one-goal cushion didn’t last long.
What the first two periods lacked in scoring, the third made up for in abundance. Northeastern scored twice in quick succession in the first six minutes, with Paige Savage tallying an assist on the first before scoring the second to put her team up 2-1.
24 seconds later, the game was tied at 2-2 thanks to BC’s Toni Ann Miano. Then, on a man-advantage for Northeastern, Kristyn Capizzano tallied the unassisted game-winner with just over ten minutes left in regulation. Kali Flanagan iced the game at 17:37 with another goal for her team. The Eagles won, 4-2.
BC’s Katie Burt had a solid outing in net, with 18 saves and just two goals-against. But it was Brittany Bugalski, Northeastern’s netminder, who really stood on her head, recording 31 saves to try and keep her team in the game.
The Eagles improve to 10-3-3, while the Huskies’ record goes to 10-4-3.
