CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — After a deflating 1-0 loss Saturday to ECAC Hockey foe Princeton, Harvard looked towards home cooking to turn things around.
The Crimson did just that on Tuesday.
“The good news about playing Tuesday night is that you don’t sit on a loss very long,” said Crimson coach Katey Stone.
Using a five-goal second period, the No. 4. Crimson (16-4-2) rolled over No. 6 Boston University (17-7-2) 9-2 in the late women’s Beanpot semifinal at the Bright-Landry Hockey Center.
Harvard will face Boston College in next Tuesday’s championship game.
“It was a really fun night for our team,” said Stone. “I was really impressed with how we started and finished.”
Crimson top-line left wing Sydney Daniels ignited the impressive start just 34 seconds into the game, getting her stick on a Kalley Armstrong pass and shooting on the left side of Terriers’ goalie Victoria Hanson.
On a breakaway just over halfway through the first, Lyndsey Fry buried a shot to put Harvard up by two for her 100th career point.
Down 2-0 after the first, BU coach Brian Durocher didn’t want his team to panic.
“I talked about in the second intermission if it was 2-1, 2-0 ten minutes into the second period, we’d be in good shape,” said Durocher. “I wasn’t really panicking if we could keep it at a 2-0 situation.”
The Terriers seemed to listen, playing more evenly with the Crimson during the first three minutes of the second period. Forcing heavy defensive pressure on the Terriers, Harvard soon came out a stride ahead of BU, and the scoring chances followed in spades.
“We made some reads and gave them jumps, and kids started to panic a bit, and we were backing in,” said Durocher. “Things just snowballed 110 percent around the ridge.”
Mary Parker opened up the Harvard goal extravaganza with a shot tipped into the net by a BU defender six minutes into the frame. Hilary Crowe found space around several Terrier defenders, scoring her ninth goal of the season just a minute later, then added another two minutes later after Miye D’Oench dragged two BU defenders with her while feeding her the puck.
Marie-Philip Poulin set up teammate Sarah Lefort with a tidy pass to finally get BU on the board 12 minutes into the second.
Harvard quickly quelled any comeback attempt that goal could have spurred. Off the resulting faceoff, the Crimson’s Dani Krzyszczyk sped up to the Terriers’ net and shot through a screen to answer, kicking off a fourth line scoring streak that would continue into the third.
Jessica Harvey added a unassisted goal to close out the second period and added her second of the night a little less than five minutes into the third period with help from Haley Mullins and Krzyszczyk.
“We got some unbelievable production out of our fourth line, which was fantastic for us,” said Stone. “It was really energizing.”
Not giving up, Lefort and Poulin assisted on a Victoria Bach goal halfway through the third, which gave the BU freshman the national lead in total goals by a rookie.
Harvard’s Samantha Reber tossed in a goal to close out the evening.
