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Home sweet home

The Black Bear women win and tie against Northeastern

By Matt Hritz

Posted on Monday, December 8th, 2003, 12:00 am

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Holly Barber

BOARDED - Defenseman Naomi Smethurst battles for the puck against the boards on Saturday at Alfond Arena. The Black Bears won and tied during the weekend series. The Hockey East matchup featured two of the best goalies in the conference.

Holly Barber

ONE AND ONLY - Freshman forward Sonia Corriveau scores the first and only goal of the game on Saturday for the Black Bears. UMaine tied Northeastern 1-1 after a five-minute overtime. The Black Bears came out of the weekend with three valuable points again

Heading into a series this weekend between Northeastern and the University of Maine, everybody knew that goals were going to be a precious commodity. The series featured two of the best goalies in Hockey East in Chandra Gunn for Northeastern and Lara Smart for the Black Bears.

Both teams found that out to be definitely true as they combined for only five goals this weekend. Fortunately for the Black Bears, they scored three of the five as they took three points from the Huskies with a 1-1 tie and 2-1 win.

In Sunday’s game, neither team scored in the first period. The Black Bears outshot the Huskies 8-4 in the period but couldn’t capitalize on anything.

“We had a bad first period,” coach Rick Filighera said. “I didn’t feel we played with any energy and I went into the locker room and pleaded with them that I really wanted to see better energy. You need to play a lot harder than that if you want to win. This is for first place.”

The Black Bears came out in the second period and took control of the game by getting on the board first at 9:19 of the second period when senior forward Karen Droog scored off a rebound from senior forward Meagan Aarts’ slapshot from the left circle. Sophomore defenseman Vicky Johnstone also assisted on the goal.

At 1:09 of the third period, freshman forward Sonja Corriveau put the Black Bears up 2-0 when she found the right side of the net for the goal. Junior forward Andrea Steranko and freshman forward Brigit LaFlamme assisted on what would be the game-winning goal for the Black Bears.

Northeastern got their only goal of the game on a 2-1 advantage at 10:32 of the period when sophomore forward Cyndy Kenyon scored in front of the net past Smart. Freshman forward Stephanie Wood assisted on the goal for the Huskies.

That would be all the scoring in the game as the Black Bears held off everything thrown at them and earned themselves first place in Hockey East with a total of nine points to New Hampshire’s seven in conference play.

Smart made 19 saves for the Black Bears while Gunn stopped 23 for the Huskies.

“I liked the way the kids played this weekend,” Filighera said. “I really thought Brigit LaFlamme had a great weekend. She had two assists and she was involved with a lot of the offense for us. I thought Lara Smart played really well and Sonja [Corriveau] played really well. There were a lot of positives from kids that are contributing this weekend that we needed to contribute. It put us into position of 4-1-1 in Hockey East that we’re very excited at where we are.”

In Saturday’s game, both teams skated to a scoreless first period, but with two minutes remaining in the second period, Corriveau scored a breakaway goal on Gunn. Steranko stole the puck from a Huskie defenseman that led to the goal for Corriveau.

Northeastern tied the game when Stephanie Wood tipped Theresa Wood’s shot from the blueline at 7:02 of the third period.

That would be all the scoring in the game, as neither team was able to finish on the scoring chances they had.

“That wasn’t our best effort,” Filighera said. “It was OK effort and at times we controlled the play. That third period they got the goal I thought we were back on our heels a little bit, but part of adversity is weathering through it and that point will allow us to be in first place [in Hockey East] at the break.”

Smart made 27 saves for the Black Bears while Gunn stopped 25 shots for the Huskies. Both goaltenders earned the first two stars of the game for their outstanding play in the game.

The Black Bears will now end the 2003 portion of their schedule when they go on the road to play Union in Schenectady, N.Y., next weekend. The next home series for the Black Bears will be Jan. 23-24, when UMaine hosts the Connecticut Huskies.

“We have two more games left and they are important games for us because we want to get to the .500 mark,” Filighera said. “We got to take control of those games. We are going to have to figure out ways to keep creating offense, but we got to figure out some ways to take care of business. We got a lot of work to do still.”