Women's Hockey Log: Searing, Seething UConn Huskies On Horizon

Yet another potential battle for long-term bubble preservation shall occupy the PC women this weekend as they engage in a home-and-home series with nationally eighth-ranked Connecticut, starting with tomorrow afternoon’s 1 p.m. draw at Schneider Arena.

 

And yet another score of statistical twins will confront them. Their sturdier national collateral aside, the Huskies trail the Friars by a point in the league leaderboard. Both programs’ mid-to-upper-class posture in the standings is reflected in most every major category from defense to discipline to special teams’ net.

 

And yet again, it shall be the same, condensed mental methodology.

 

“Everyone needs to be focused on and off the ice,” said junior defender Colleen Martin. “We’ve grown in the past months, and we know what it takes to be successful. So as long as we’re all focused on the one goal –and we all have it in our hearts- we can play our best hockey that we can at this time.”

 

No one, though, has flaunted their recent growth or savored success quite as conspicuously as the opposing Huskies. Dating back to the final week of November, UConn has deftly woven a hot string of 11 wins in 12 tries, enhancing a once-.500 record of 6-6-2 to 17-7-2.

 

And the same old acetylene suspects are anchoring the near-constant pillage. Concomitant with the program’s collective tear, junior co-captain Dominique Thibault has an active scoring streak of 10 games –albeit interposed by her holiday Eurotrip to the MLP Cup with the Canadian U-22 team- during which she has kindled 11 goals and 15 points.

 

Thibault’s classmate and linemate Michelle Binning has put her name to 10 of the last dozen scoresheets, charging up a 6-6-12 log in that space of time.

 

Cristin Allen, the WHEA’s highest-scoring defensive player, has 10 points in her last 11 ventures and a 5-16-21 transcript on the year.

 

Given that bill of talking points, there lies little-to-nada new on the Friars’ answer key against their western border rivals.

 

“You have it approach it just like every other game. You can’t take any teams for granted,” said Martin. “They’re playing well, we’re playing well. This is probably our best hockey that we’ve been playing (all year). So as long as we can continue to build on last weekend (a home-and-home sweep of Boston University), probably our best weekend and just continue on to this weekend.

 

“They’re a strong, physical team. (But) we just need to play them like we would play any other team.”

 

Mirroring masks

This weekend’s projected goaltending matchup of Genevieve Lacasse and Brittany Wilson equals stern grounds for a quintessentially titanic tilt in the cage, not unlike what they presented at Schneider Arena in mid-November, when the Friars tipped the scale on a late third period 5-on-3 segment towards a 2-0 triumph.

 

That marked the Friar freshman’s first career shutout, a collection she has since swollen to five, including three in as many Saturday home ventures this month. The UConn senior counters with five eggs of her own, including back-to-back zaps on Northeastern last week.

 

As of yesterday, against conference cohabitants, Lacasse and Wilson have four shutouts apiece, trailing only Boston College blocker Molly Schaus’ six. Lacasse is tops under the headings of both goals-against average (1.10) and save-percentage (.958). Wilson falls in second and third in those respective categories, brandishing a GAA of 1.26 and stoppage rate of .939.

 

Wilson and Lacasse are the two winningest stoppers on the WHEA schedule with respective percentages of .850 and .800.

 

And finally, they are the only Hockey East goalies with any assists on the year, Wilson having scraped out three, Lacasse one.

 

Quick Feeds: With 127 and 118 respective shots on net, Thibault and Binning are the league’s second and third most frequent puckslingers. Binning also leads all Hockey Easterners with seven game-winning goals…Live video streaming will be offered for tomorrow’s game via friars.com…Tomorrow’s clash between PC and UConn’s Skating Sororities will likely wrap up within an hour of the 4 p.m. tip-off between their male basketball peers at Gampel Pavilion.…Part II of this series –slated to commence at 1 p.m. Sunday at Freitas Ice Forum- will be UConn’s day to observe the third annual Skating Strides Against Breast Cancer charity. The Friars will subsequently observe the event in their barn a week from tonight against Northeastern, as will the Hub Huskies the following evening when the teams tangle at Matthews Arena next Saturday night.

 

Al Daniel can be reached at hockeyscribe@hotmail.com

 

This article originally appeared in the Friartown Free Press

Women's Hockey Log: Friars' Depth Short, But Diverse

Assuming the current disturbances of a league-wide obsessive-defensive approach scoop up speed and cyclical force, the rest of the PC women’s season promises to see fewer pens and more tumbleweeds blow across the rows and columns of their scoresheets.

 

The forecast calls for conditions inclined to induce widespread toe numbness in goaltenders and an epidemic of goal judges losing proper feeling in their thumbs due to inactivity.

 

Hockey East as a whole saw six shutouts in eight league contests over the past weekend. The best aurora of red lights amongst those games was New Hampshire’s 5-1 throttling of Maine at the Whittemore Center Saturday.

 

For the Friars part, in a cumulative 4-1 final spaced over a home-and-home sweep of Boston University, the trinity of beacons comprising the first line –i.e. Ashley Cottrell, Alyse Ruff, and Laura Veharanta- were muzzled for the entire ride. (Granted, though, Ruff was initially credited with an assist on Jean O’Neill’s first period equalizer on Sunday before that point was transplanted to Colleen Martin’s resume. Ruff would have been statistically rewarded if there were a three-assist allotment).

 

But, to their credit, others have stepped in to plug the modest offering of open slivers. And just enough to have inched Providence into a snug squeeze in the upper-middle half of the standings.

 

O’Neill, trying to bury the last afterthoughts of an injury that nagged her for three months, has snagged two goals in eight games this January, effectively doubling her bushel of points to four on the season.

 

“The first half of the year was rough, but I think things are starting to get better now,” she said. “And not just for me personally, but the team as a whole. I think everyone’s coming together more. And we just had a big weekend against BU, and I think things are just going to start building off of that.”

 

Fourth-line center Steph Morris, confined to diddlysquat in the way of scoring for her first 16 outings, has pitched in two pivotal assists over her last six, including one on O’Neill’s latest strike on Sunday.

 

Morris’ associate, Pam McDevitt, was likewise fettered for all of her first 15 ventures. She splashed that personal drought in early December and has since proceeded to initiate Katy Beach’s icebreaker/game-winner against the Terriers on Saturday.

 

Freshman Kate Bacon, lately supplementing the crafty international stars Erin Normore and Mari Pehkonen on the second line, aided in the Finnish Flare’s insurance goal that same afternoon, amounting to two goals and two helpers for her on the month and upping her total transcript to 6-4-10 in 24 swirls.

 

Even defensive connoisseur Jennifer Friedman –though statistically silent in the latest series- is on the heels of a four-goal, five-point-in-four-games sugar rush, which spiked her data up to a 4-3-7 log from a 0-2-2 reading prior Christmas.

 

In partial thanks to this handful of pleasant surprise perk-ups, the Friars –who at any rate have long established their self-proclaimed comfort with defensive arm wrestling bouts- have split their last 23 goals amongst 10 firsthand strikers and 18 different point-getters.

 

“Our whole team’s getting better as the season goes on,” said O’Neill. “The season half of the season is where I think everyone starts to come together and everyone’s best play really comes out and shows.”

 

Quick Feeds: Nineteen individual Friars have now combined for exactly 100 assists…Each of the last nine PC-BU get-togethers have been decided by two goals or less. The Friars hold a 6-2-1 upper hand in that space…Within strictly league action, the Friars and BC Eagles are currently tied for the best scoring defense with a mere 19 goals against…According to head coach Bob Deraney, reached via e-mail yesterday, there have been no modifications to Jackie Duncan’s “day-to-day” stature on the IR, delivering that revelation more swiftly than Bruin Zdeno Chara’s superior slap shot…With a cumulative 57 saves on 58 shots faced over the weekend, goaltender Genevieve Lacasse was deemed the WHEA’s Rookie of the Week for the second time in three offerings and third time overall. She currently reigns supreme in the conference-only leaderboard under the headings of both goals-against average (1.10) and save-percentage (.958).

 

Al Daniel can be reached at hockeyscribe@hotmail.com

 

This article originally appeared in the Friartown Free Press

Women's Hockey 2, Boston University 1

Report based on Gametracker

 

BOSTON- Trivial trends, elements and stats are nonetheless realities and must be dealt with accordingly –if only indirectly.

 

The Friars had just that sort of task glowering before them yesterday at the bottom of a home-and-home series with Boston University. It was a twofold finer-points wager to scrape out their first back-to-back pair of wins in nearly two months and cultivate their first full two-point package at Walter Brown Arena in two seasons and four drop-ins.

 

“They’re all independent,” said head coach Bob Deraney, who some two-plus decades ago kilned more than a couple of triumphs himself in this building as one of Professor of Puck Jack Parker’s Pupils. “What happened in the past has no relevance on what’s going to happen tomorrow. It comes down to us just getting back to playing high-caliber hockey and again being willing to pay the price.”

 

Deraney had spoken those words in the aftermath of an epic 2-0 triumph back home on Saturday. The contesting elements, he figured, needed only to coalesce and churn in the Walter Brown melting pot roughly the same way they had at Schneider Arena.

 

They did, and then some. For the second time in as many days, Providence tipped the scale –albeit through a come-from-behind 2-1 decision- on the strength of a go-ahead goal by senior forward Katy Beach. Beach’s power play strike, inserted with 6:11 gone in the middle frame, would go down as the eighth game-clincher of her career and third in as many PC knockouts of the Terriers.

 

Yet again, though, before and after the Beach factor, the favorable upshot hardly went down with leisurely facility. The host Terriers, a pinch extra rabid for this immediate rematch, skated up an early tempest around adamant goaltender Genevieve Lacasse (23 saves). Within the first eight minutes, they spiked up a 6-1 upper hand in the shooting gallery, three coming on a power play while Erin Normore did time for an interference citation issued with 5:51 gone.

 

Right at the time of Normore’s jailbreak, attacker Erin Seman slugged home a fourth stab for an unofficial PP conversion and an unmistakable 1-0 lead.

 

But in duplicating Saturday on yet another front, the Friars would come to abolish a former 8-2 deficit on the shot clock. When they pulled even under that heading in the final minute before intermission, they did the same under the one roof of dictatorial data.

 

With 41 seconds to work with –and less than three minutes removed from spilling their second power play of the day- PC drew the 1-1 knot courtesy Jean O’Neill, who polished a rebound dropped off by Stephanie Morris.

 

For the better part of the latter 40 minutes, the puck continued to alternate zones in football-paced intervals. A holding penalty to Alyse Ruff at 1:49 of the second, in part, let BU reopen its shooting edge to 11-8. But upon her release, the fresh-out-the-box Ruff lassoed the biscuit and proceeded to pelt BU stopper Melissa Haber (20 saves), ultimately precipitating the deciding buzz.

 

The Friars had restored full strength for merely 46 seconds when they went a player up themselves, the Terriers’ top point-getter Melissa Anderson having been flagged for body-checking at 4:35.

 

Fruitless in all of its preceding 10 calls to action, and having produced only three goals in its last 24 opportunities, the power play brigade perked back up for a fleeting, one-shot conversion. Beach, already with four strikes when grinding on the player advantage, nailed home a feed from her fellow A-captain Normore, sprouting the fresh, 2-1 lead.

 

From there, the suddenly bolstered Friars sculpted a 15-11 shooting edge, only to let BU pull back even in that category, 15-15, before the second buzzer. The only difference: Lacasse, unlike Haber, uncompromisingly stood her ground through the whole swirl.

 

Haber swallowed another four unanswered shots during an early PK in the third. And beginning at 11:14 with a tripping call to the Friars’ Mari Pehkonen, the BU crease custodian was able to loosen her hunching stature and watch as her mates charged up eight of the last nine registered bids of the game.

 

But even after Amber Yung went off for hooking with 1:21 to spare –an unspeakably ominous reminder of the win here that wasn’t quite back in November- PC filtered the onslaught to a reasonably digestible load for Lacasse, who hauled in BU co-captain Gina Kearns’ last-ditch swing just on the cusp of the final horn to put a stamp on the weekend sweep.

 

Al Daniel can be reached at hockeyscribe@hotmail.com

 

This article originally appeared in the Friartown Free Press