CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. — During the gut check moment, a freshman with one goal to her name went coast to coast against the No. 11 team in the country. Kaileigh Quigg’s shot and the ensuing rebound were both saved, but when the puck found her again moments later, she sensed an unmarked teammate in the middle and slid a no-look, backhanded pass.
An unknowing skate sent that puck wayward, so a fifth-year senior who arrived here seeking refuge did a pirouette to retrieve it. When Ani Fitzgerald had spun far enough to face the goal again, she uncorked an unsavable wrister into the top corner.
As one does.
You know — just a game-tying tally on the road against arch-rival Boston College, courtesy of BU women’s hockey’s fourth and final line.
These No. 14 Terriers are officially legit, and it’s not because they can beat up on bad teams, or even because a few superstars are carrying an otherwise unremarkable roster. This is a complete cultural transformation from top to bottom. This is a team on which every kind of player from everywhere on the lineup is playing their best hockey. This is a group that can watch its Hockey East Player of the Month, Lola Reid, disappear during the biggest series of the season thus far and simply make it not matter.
After outplaying but still losing to the Eagles in overtime at Agganis Arena Friday night, the Terriers took the Green Line down to Conte Forum and squeezed their arch enemy off its own ice in a 3-1 victory Saturday, because apparently, that’s just what BU (10-4-1, 8-2-1 Hockey East) does now.
The Terriers reached 10 wins a full 64 days earlier than they did last season, a 14-18-3 campaign that ended in a first-round tournament defeat. BU, which hasn’t won Hockey East in a decade, leads the conference with 27 points after playing over a third of its league slate.
All of this, from a program that lost more players to the portal in the offseason than all but one Division 1 team.
Make no mistake — this is the territory of the truly remarkable. And yet, when she was asked what the series in totality said about BU, graduate forward Lindsay Bochna stood against the Conte Forum glass and answered simply: “It’s only going up from here.”
Freshman Reid — the conference’s October Player of the Month and BU’s leading point-scorer — was nowhere to be found across both games. Neither was junior Clara Yuhn, the joint leading goal-scorer. So Quigg and Fitzgerald decided to do that early in the second period on Saturday, then Bochna lifted home her third goal of the season right after to give BU the lead — a rebound off a shot from graduate defender Julia Shaunessy, who scored her first of the year on Friday.
Junior Sydney Healey, surging of late, deked around Campbell late in the third to seal Saturday’s win.
“We’re pretty skilled!” second-year head coach Tara Watchorn said with a smirk.
Quigg and Fitzgerald weren’t even linemates on Friday. Watchorn has tinkered with the lineup constantly this season, and her mad science has worked almost every time.
“Our communication, it’s always been good off the ice, but on the ice, it’s getting better. And you’re seeing us be able to play fast because of it, and we’re finding lines that have identities,” Watchorn said. “We’re all different on the ice with a unique set of skills. Putting people together that complement each other, you’re seeing that up and down the lineup.”
Only two of the Terriers’ everyday forwards have yet to score this season. One is Alex Law, who might be the fastest skater in Hockey East. The other is Christina Vote, who is second on the team in points off assists alone.
There are plenty of layers to BU’s seismic cultural shift this season. To ask which one stands out most is an impossible question, one that was presented to Bochna postgame anyway.
“Everyone’s able to be themselves,” she said. “Not one person is meant to fit some kind of norm. Everyone is meant to be different. That’s why we’re all here.”
None of this has even made mention of BU’s defensive core, which Watchorn also rotated on Saturday, changing all three pairings and adding an extra defender. The group proceeded to deliver its best performance of an already strong year.
BC (9-4-0, 6-2-0 HE) was barely even in the game.
“It comes back to everything we said about our offense, they’re all so different, and they play well together,” Watchorn said. “They utilize their skill sets, they play hard and they’re bought in. But they’re leaning into their strengths, and not trying to be something they’re not.”
Over the 30 in-game minutes following Bochna’s goal — when BC, remember, was trailing by one and needed to score — BU allowed three shots on goal.
Three.
The Eagles were ultimately outshot, 30-9, their lowest total since at least 2010. BU had dropped Friday’s series opener mostly due to two uncharacteristic errors from senior netminder Callie Shanahan, so the Terriers responded on Saturday by not allowing any pucks to reach Hockey East’s October Goaltender of the Month.
“Feels good to not have to rely on her,” Bochna said.
Five weeks ago, BU showed its resilience in a rebound win over Northeastern. In the weeks that followed, it made clear it was a tier above the conference cellar-dwellers it hadn’t separated itself from across four consecutive losing seasons.
On Friday, it proved it truly deserved a seat at the Hockey East adult’s table, even in a loss. Then on Saturday, the Terriers announced to their biggest rival that they can beat you whenever, however and with whomever.
They’re running out of tests to pass.
So let’s call it like it is. This is no fluke. BU women’s hockey is a Hockey East contender, however impossible it is to believe that Watchorn and the Terriers actually pulled that off.
The only question, now: Just how good can BU be?
Shanahan, for her part, declared the group “can definitely be National Champions” after a win several weeks ago, when that still sounded absurd. Watchorn had been talking about National Championship aspirations even before that.
Bochna, then, was asked the same question to conclude Saturday’s postgame availability. She chose the safer route, but it was undone by rather unsubtle body language.
So how good can this team be?
Nodding and smirking, Bochna quipped: “Pretty good.”
Recent Comments