BU women's hockey falters, 3-2, at Vermont in series finale

Today at 08:16 PM

BURLINGTON, Vt. — Jim Plumer knew it, and Tara Watchorn did too.

The weekend series between Watchorn's Boston University women's hockey and Plumer's Vermont was going to be tight, despite the gulf in the standings between the Terriers and Catamounts. There's an equally big gap between the top four teams in the conference — of which BU leads — and the bottom six — in which UVM is third from last — but very rarely has it been easy for No. 13 BU in Hockey East this season. And the Catamounts presented a unique challenge not seen often in the league, according to Watchorn.

"The thing about these teams that we haven't played yet: they haven't played us," Plumer said midweek. "And I don't know if there's that many teams that have found us to be easy to play against, and we won't be this weekend."

After surviving on Friday night, BU couldn't complete the sweep on Saturday night, falling 3-2 at Gutterson Fieldhouse. The Terriers (13-6-1, 11-3-1 HE) still lead Hockey East with 36 points, but an opportunity to go five points clear was squandered during their first loss to a bottom-six team of the season.

Three takeaways, plus how it happened, below.

BU had one too many spurts of poor play.

Overall, BU was probably the better team on Saturday — but at the start of both the second and third periods, Vermont dominated proceedings and was rewarded with the equalizer and the game-winner.

The Terriers rescued themselves with a series of blocked shots in the second, but when Cats' forward Lara Beecher found an open look on a wrister from the circle, she cashed via a fortunate deflection off sophomore goalie Mari Pietersen. And in the third period, after Pietersen somehow kept a barrage of shots out of her goal, the puck fell to graduate Cats defender Kyla Bent, who buried a one-timer through traffic.

BU survived despite a poor first period on Friday, but UVM was very much in that contest, as it was on Saturday, and the Terriers could only hold the hosts off for so long.

BU paid for Vermont's physicality.

The Terriers took several big hits during both games, and after emerging unscathed on Friday, BU will head home battered and bruised after the loss.

Graduate captain Tamara Giaquinto took a big hit to the midsection late in the second period and was tended to by the team trainer for an extended period on the bench. Senior forward Liv Haag was boarded and appeared to hurt her wrist moments later. Late in the third, senior forward Christina Vote collapsed under the weight of a defender, and was helped off the ice after a long stoppage with an apparent head injury.

BU scored right away, again.

Junior Sydney Healey completed a gorgeous tic-tac-toe play with linemates Lilli Welcke and Lindsay Bochna just 18 seconds after puck drop, giving BU an early lead the day after Welcke opened the scoring only 61 seconds in. And when Vermont equalized later in the period on Saturday, senior assistant captain Maggie Hanzel immediately responded with a wrister off iron from the top of the circle on a BU power play.

BU has now opened the scoring in 13 of its 20 games and entered the first intermission leading in half of them. The Terriers haven't spent much time trailing this season; especially against teams in the bottom six of Hockey East. It's one of the reasons BU has been so good against those teams.

And while BU was "shaky," in the first period on Friday night, according to Watchorn, the Terriers still led after the frame, before putting together a much better performance in the opening period on Saturday.

How it happened:

Sophomore Mari Pietersen started in goal for the first time since Oct. 26 at Syracuse, ending a run of 600 consecutive minutes in net for senior Callie Shanahan.

On the starting lineup's first shift, the puck found Bochna at one corner of the neutral zone, and the graduate forward fired a diagonal pass to the opposite corner and Welcke. The junior skated into the offensive zone and spotted Healey across, who received the pass, deked around the goalie and buried it.

Eight minutes later, Cats' freshman forward Oona Havana found an uncontested shot opportunity from the circle, and sniped a wrister into the near post's corner, but less than three minutes after that, Hanzel regained the lead for BU.

At the end of a Vermont avalanche to start the second period, junior Cats forward Lara Beecher fired a wrister from the circle, which Pietersen dropped as she attempted to catch it above her head. The ensuing deflection looped behind her back and into goal at 7:12.

The Terriers woke up after conceding, hemming Vermont into its own defensive zone for the rest of the period, much like the Cats had done to them to open the frame. BU didn't allow a shot to reach Pietersen in the frame after the goal, and finished the period with eight shots on goal themselves. Several minutes after the concession, Lola Reid nearly scored her first goal since Nov. 1, but Vermont goalie Sydney Correa miraculously recovered to save her rebound attempt.

Beecher gave Vermont the lead at 6:54, but it was a BU onslaught the rest of the way. The Terriers couldn't cash in on multiple quality looks, including during two minutes of 4-on-4 that turned into a pseudo power play when Pietersen left her net. Shots on goal finished 22-16 in favor of BU.