BC Knocks Huskies Out of Beanpot

Each of the past four years, the Harvard women’s hockey team has needed an overtime victory over Northeastern to win the Beanpot. That streak will not continue this year. Boston College guaranteed it.

The Eagles defeated the Huskies 3-2 yesterday to make it only the second time since 1981 that the winner of a Harvard-Northeastern game hasn’t gone on to win the Beanpot. The other was in 1993, when special guest Brown won it all.

“History says it should be Northeastern and Harvard, but this year it’s BC and Harvard and that’s great,” said Harvard coach Katey Stone. “Bottom line is the Beanpot is on the line. It doesn’t matter when you go after that pot.”

Northeastern was on the brink of the Frozen Four a year ago, but this season has been a different story. The Huskies are guaranteed their worst finish in school history with a 7-16-2 record. Their previous low was 14-15-5 in 1996.

Northeastern has been going through a difficult transition year. The Huskies started the season with freshmen making up half their roster. Coach Joy Woog, in her third season, had the majority of her recruits on the roster for the first time. She expected that the team would struggle with its youth at first, but she did not expect the struggles to continue to this point of the season. Woog drew further scrutiny when she cut two of her three senior captains from the team in early January.

BC, on the other end, is a program on the rise, having won its first Hockey East game and set a new school record for wins as a Division I program.

BC coach Tom Babson said his team had something to prove after losing 17-2 to Harvard in its previous game. Now the Eagles will get a second chance against the Crimson.

Babson said that playing Harvard helped his team move up a notch in terms of its speed. He said that Jaclyn Kryzak, who scored BC’s first goal by skating circles around the Husky defense, looked faster than he had ever seen her.

“It was great to make history with our first win over Northeastern,” said BC sophomore Kerri Sanders, who scored the game-winning goal. “Hopefully we will take the momentum into Harvard on Tuesday.”

—Staff writer David R. De Remer can be reached at remer@fas.harvard.edu.