Crosstown Rival BU Holds Off Harvard Women's Hockey

Sometimes your best effort just isn’t good enough.

Despite outshooting its opponent for the fourth straight game, the Harvard women’s hockey team (5-6-2, 4-2-2 ECAC) came up short against another tough opponent, losing, 5-3, to No. 4/5 Boston University (14-2-3, 5-1-3 Hockey East) Friday night at Bright Hockey Center.

Though a two-goal effort from tri-captain Liza Ryabkina tied the game early in the third period, the Terriers knocked in a pair of scores in the span of less than 30 seconds to put the game out of reach.

“With the exception of about five minutes, might have been even less than that, we were right there with them,” Crimson coach Katey Stone said. “They’re a very good hockey team, extremely good—a lot of weapons, a lot of skill. And I thought our kids played tremendously well.”

The game was marked by a fast-paced, physical style of play that left both teams with limited looks at the net. But although Harvard outshot BU, 10-5, in the first period, the visitors entered the first break with a 1-0 lead.

After sophomore Josephine Pucci was called for tripping 3:21 into the game, the Terriers set up on the power play.

It took just under a minute for BU to cycle the puck to freshman star Marie-Philip Poulin, who one-timed a close-range shot past sophomore goaltender Laura Bellamy. Poulin—who scored both goals in the Olympic gold-medal game for Canada in February—was assisted by Jenn Wakefield and Jenelle Kohanchuk on the tally.

Harvard got a number of opportunities in the first, particularly on its two power plays in the period, but failed to find the back of the net.

The Terriers came out hard after intermission and dominated the first half of the second period, doubling their lead less than three minutes into the frame.

Wakefield fed the puck to Jillian Kirchner in the left circle, and the senior banked the puck off the far post for a 2-0 advantage at the 2:46 mark.

But Harvard’s defense locked down for the next 20 minutes, giving the offense a chance to get back in the game.

“They had a lot of really skilled players, but I think we stayed right with them,” Ryabkina said. “Overall, I thought that our defense did a tremendous job keeping them out and shutting them down.”

With just under seven minutes to go in the second, the Crimson was finally able to set up in its offensive zone. Tri-captain Kate Buesser fired a pass across the ice, and Ryabkina one-timed the puck into the top right corner of the cage.

“Liza has a knack for getting available in the right spot,” Stone said. “She’s got such a strong shot that, if we can get it to her, nine times out of 10, good things will happen.”

The Crimson defense then killed off another penalty late in the period to head into the second break with all the momentum on its side.

Just 1:45 into the third, Kohanchuk was sent to the box for cross-checking, giving Harvard its third power-play opportunity of the evening.

Ryabkina didn’t waste the chance, firing another one-timer—this one assisted by tri-captain Leanna Coskren and Pucci—past Terrier netminder Kerrin Sperry to level the score at two.

It was the fourth straight game that the Crimson’s top power-play unit—composed of Ryabkina, Coskren, Pucci, Buesser, and senior Katharine Chute—found the back of the net.

“We’re getting better, we’re getting used to each other,” Stone said. “We’re getting better looks at the net, which is really important. Kids are possessing the puck a little bit more, which is good. We’re not throwing it around.”

But things quickly unraveled for Harvard, as BU found the net twice in the span of 28 seconds to push its lead back up to 4-2.

“I think everybody was just really excited [after the tying goal], and people started feeling like, ‘Yeah, we can do this,’” Ryabkina said. “It was unfortunate that they scored pretty shortly after.”

With 16:19 on the clock, Wakefield knocked a pass from Kaleigh Fratkin past an out-of-position Bellamy to put the Terriers ahead by a score. Jill Cardella followed with a quick transition goal of her own off assists from Kohanchuk and Catherine Ward to kill the Crimson’s comeback bid.

“Just young mistakes, I think,” Stone said. “We are young, but we also need to be a little bit sharper.”

Poulin added her second goal of the game with six minutes to play to give BU a 5-2 lead. But the Crimson kept battling until the end, and with 0.3 seconds left on the clock, Chute slipped a puck past Sperry to make the final score 5-3.

Junior Alisa Baumgartner and sophomore Whitney Kennedy recorded assists.

The loss marks the conclusion both of the 2010 portion of Harvard’s schedule and of the toughest stretch of the Crimson’s season. Harvard has played ranked opponents in six of its last seven games and has gone 2-4 in those contests.

“We had a few bad steps and mistakes, and that hurt us,” Stone said. “We’ve got to play pretty perfect defense, I think. But overall, our effort was unbelievable...And now it’s a matter of us getting better and better.”

—Staff writer Kate Leist can be reached at kliest@fas.harvard.edu.