Black Bears fall to Hockey East frontrunner Northeastern

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Entering Friday’s matchup against the University of Maine, the No. 8 Northeastern University Huskies had won all 10 games in which junior left wing Alyssa Wohlfeiler contributed a point, and were 10-1-0 when they scored first. The “Wohlfeiler streak” extended to 11 games and her second period goal was the game’s first in a 3-1 win at Alfond Arena.

Wohlfeiler beat UMaine freshman goaltender Brittany Ott for her 10th goal of the season just 37 seconds after the opening faceoff in the second frame. Her blocker-side wrister found the back of the net after she gathered defenseman Stephanie Gavronsky’s chip into the UMaine zone from along the right sideboards.

“It’s always nice getting the first goal to try and get the team rolling,” Wohlfeiler said. Gavronsky “saw that the player didn’t have possession and made a great play and poked it through. I just was in the right place at the right time.”

The Hockey East leading Huskies improved to 14-5-2 (8-4-2-1 Hockey East) in their third game since returning from the holiday break. UMaine fell to 6-11-5 (3-6-3-1 HE) in their first game back. They will look to regroup next weekend in a pair of games at the University of Connecticut.

“We didn’t really work as a team,” UMaine freshman right wing Brittany Dougherty said. “They came out really hard and we came out decent.”

Freshman left wing Rachel Llanes also scored for Northeastern in the second period, before Dougherty solved Northeastern sophomore goaltender Florence Schelling on a power play 7:49 into the third. Freshman defenseman Lindsay Domaas gave the Huskies a late insurance goal.

The Huskies took the season series 2-1 after winning the first game in Boston 5-1 on Nov. 14 and falling 1-0 the following night.

“Before the game, we decided to play it like a playoff game,” Wohlfeiler said. “Those points were really huge.”

The 1-0 win was Ott’s first career shutout, and Northeastern interim coach Linda Lundrigan expected to see her between the pipes again.

“She does a good job of gobbling everything up and not leaving too many rebounds,” Lundrigan said. “Our goal was to just keep peppering her and hopefully it would tip the scales to our advantage.”

UMaine coach Dan Lichterman was disappointed by how his team welcomed the challenge.

“We were inconsistent in our competition level,” Lichterman said. “Against the first place team and No.8 team in the country, you can’t play like that.”

Schelling, the nation’s fifth-ranked netminder in goals-against average (1.30) saw a potential fifth shutout of the season slip away when a Melissa Gagnon slap-pass from the mid-point re-directed off UMaine senior left wing Amy Stech’s skate at the door step and Dougherty finished at the left post. The Black bears failed to capitalize three other times with the man-advantage.

“It went off Schelling and it came right on my stick,” Dougherty said.

UMaine’s momentum generated by Dougherty’s goal was short-lived as Domaas beat Ott top-shelf as she trailed the offensive rush through the slot. It was Domaas’ first career goal, and came at even-strength.

“I was really happy when we scored the third goal,” Schelling said, emphasizing the increased pressure for a goaltender in a 2-1 game.

Northeastern’s defense frustrated UMaine’s attack and limited the Black Bears to seven shots or less in each period. Schelling turned away 19 shots and improved to 10-5-2. She will represent her native Switzerland at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

“Our goalies are awesome, and we definitely wouldn’t be where we are without them,” Wohlfeiler said.

The teams went into the first intermission even at seven shots, but four of Northeastern’s attempts came on their first power play.

“I think that they were happy with the scoring chances they were getting, but we just talked to them a little bit about believing that eventually one was going to drop in,” Lundrigan said.

Llanes finished freshman center Brittany Esposito’s backhander that rang off the crossbar 8:15 into the second period as Ott was sprawled out attempting to make the initial stop. Northeastern doubled UMaine’s shot output 12-6 in the second period.

“We knew we had to change something,” Shelling said. “We had to attack the net harder, and that’s what we did in the second period.”

Ott faced 16 Grade-A (high percentage) chances of 29 total shots and survived all four Northeastern power plays. She fell to 4-6-3. Northeastern put nine shots on net in the four power plays while UMaine managed just four shots during theirs.

“They got a couple of second opportunities, and they capitalized on them,” Ott said. “It’s a tough loss today, but we can’t let it slow us down.”

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 16th, 2010, 1:00 am. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.