Sports

Women’s ice hockey drops two on weekend

Hockey falls to rivals, record slips to 0-2-1 in America East play

By Danielle Young

Posted on Nov. 01, 2007, at 12:00 a.m.

The University of Maine women’s ice hockey team dropped a tough pair of conference road games this past weekend, losing to both Boston College and the University of New Hampshire. The Black Bears’ record fell to 1-6-1 overall and 0-2-1 in America East play.

In Chestnut Hill on Saturday night, Maine battled Boston College in a competitive game. In the first period, both teams skated strong, but the Eagles struck first when Allie Thunstrom notched a short-handed goal 5:37 into the period. Each team tallied seven shots in the first period.

Boston College extended their lead in the second period after Meghan Fardelmann added a power play goal at the 4:26 mark. Minutes later the Eagles scored again when Shannon Webster took a pass from Fardelmann, which increased the Boston College lead to 3-0 after two complete periods.

The resilient Black Bears came thundering back in the third period but fell short of forcing overtime. Sophomore Elyce Thomas scored her second goal of the season at the 12:25 mark after taking a pass from first-year Jennie Gallo and junior Taryn Peacock. At 18:45, Maine pulled within one goal of Boston College on a Peacock goal on an assist by junior Vanessa Vani. Despite Maine’s third period comeback, Boston College hung on to win 3-2. “We played our best team game thus far. We all worked hard and did not stop until the last whistle,” Thomas said.

Maine goaltender Genevieve Turgeon stopped 26 of 29 shots. Her counterpart, BC goaltender Molly Schaus tallied 15 saves on 17 shots. Maine was 1-4 on the power play while Boston College went 1-6.

Maine traveled to Durham, NH the next day to face arch nemesis the University of New Hampshire. The Black Bears got off to a rocky start and played a first period that they soon hope to forget. Just twelve seconds into the period, UNH’s Sam Faber got the Wildcats on the board. Two minutes later, teammate Kelly Patton made the score 2-0. Thirty seconds after the second goal, Courtney Birchard sent a devastating blow to the Black Bears and scored UNH’s third goal of the period. Maine had only 2 shots on goal in the first period, falling way short of UNH’s 21 shots.

Maine did not recover from the bad start and was shut out by UNH 5-0. Goaltender Genevieve Turgeon knew her team had lost early on Sunday. “Against UNH, our first five minutes costed us the game. They scored three goals right away. They have an excellent team, and you can’t afford a bad start against a team of that level,” she said. Junior Vanessa Vani reflects back on the game: “we got mentally defeated against UNH after they scored 3 quick goals, but we never gave up.”

You can check out the team next when they host Clarkson University this weekend, Nov. 2 and 3. Game times are Friday at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 2 p.m.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 1st, 2007, 12:00 am. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.