Who will step up in next round?
Come tournament time, teams count on players to step up in a big way. That is quite true for the four teams left standing in the women’s Hockey East tournament, which holds its semifinal round Wednesday. Be they consistent contributors, under-the-radar team players, or heralded rookies, players stepped up for all four teams in the quarterfinal round.
In the first semifinal, No. 2 seed Northeastern hosts No. 3 New Hampshire at Matthews Arena (4:30 p.m.). The scoring issues that plagued the Huskies (24-10-3) earlier in the season have improved, with their 4-1 quarterfinal victory over Merrimack a great example. The Huskies put 35 shots on net and answered quickly and often once the No. 9 Warriors scored the game’s first goal.
Northeastern’s line of freshman Ella Blackmore and sophomores Lily Shannon and Holly Abela is emerging as a threat at the perfect time. The trio combined for 13 shots in the quarterfinal and for the team’s third goal. Shannon and Abela possessed burgeoning confidence in their freshman years, but their calmness and trust in the game plan are even better late in their second campaign.
On the opposite side of the experience scale, Skylar Irving and Katy Knoll continue to chip in goals when needed. Irving, a junior, scored twice in the quarterfinal win after being stymied by Vermont during the last weekend of the regular season. The Kingston native hasn’t scored against New Hampshire this season, but she did have assists in each of the three regular-season matchups.
Graduate student Knoll is relentless, an example of the offensive tenacity that Northeastern has built over the last few seasons. She has been held off the scoresheet only once in the last six games, a 2-0 loss to Vermont.
Northeastern’s best chance of winning big games this season has been tied to Knoll’s ability to find the back of the net. Add in Knoll’s knack for scoring plus great defensive pressure by blue liner Megan Carter and one of the nation’s top goaltenders in Gwyneth Phillips, and the Huskies have a definite edge over New Hampshire.
However, Sedona Blair might eliminate some of that advantage. New Hampshire’s rookie goaltender broke the program’s season saves record in the 3-0 quarterfinal win over No. 6 Vermont. Blair has made 889 saves this season and is a finalist for Hockey East Rookie of the Year.
But it is not Blair alone powering the Wildcats (18-15-2), who have not won this many games since 2009, the last time they won a
Hockey East championship.
New Hampshire was ranked a dismal eighth in the league’s preseason poll, and set out to prove that wrong. Grad students Tamara Thierus and Annie Berry are playing solid twoway hockey, which showed in both their contributions to the scoresheet against Vermont and their part in limiting an offense that included the league’s leading scorer, Natalie Mlynkova, to a mere 15 shots.
Shea Verrier, a junior, also stepping up offensively, with two goals and an assist in the last two games.
If New Hampshire does pull off an upset, it not only earns a spot in the league title game for the first time in 15 years, it moves one step closer to participating in a home Women’s Frozen Four, which will be held at the Whittemore Center March 22-24.
UConn looks to be a favorite in the nightcap in Storrs, Conn., a matchup pitting the No. 1 Huskies against No. 4 Boston College (7 p.m.). To say the Eagles (15-13-7) have had an up-anddown season is an understatement. Their overtime quarterfinal victory against No. 5 Providence was their first win in four games, and marked the ninth time BC has played an overtime game this season.
What was promising was the play of Eagles sophomore goalie Grace Campbell, who made 46 saves against the Friars, her third-most of the season.
Such a performance will be key to stopping top dog UConn (23-7-5), which has 13 players in double digit scoring. Leading scorer Jada Habisch had a goal and an assist in the quarterfinal win over No. 10 Holy Cross, improving the senior’s points total to 27 on the season.
UConn also is Hockey East’s best team on the power play, converting 23.9 percent for 22 goals. BC hasn’t been nearly as successful; against Providence, the Eagles could not convert either of their two attempts, and they are sixth in the league in the statistic.
Despite UConn’s recent success, it is important to remember that the Huskies went 0-2-1 against BC this season, the only league series they lost. In those games, the Eagles had welldistributed scoring, overwhelming a usually dominant UConn defense.
Kate Ham’s quarterfinal contributions for BC show that scoring depth could reemerge for the Eagles. The sophomore scored the equalizer against Providence, her first goal in 10 games. More Eagles will need to step forward, because there is no doubt UConn will heavily defend the league’s top rookie scorer, BC’s Sammy Taber (31 points).