BOSTON — Marie-Philip Poulin led the way with two goals as No. 7 Boston University defeated injury-plagued Northeastern 3-1 in Tuesday afternoon’s Beanpot consolation game.
Poulin struck first, intercepting an errant Huskies pass and coming in alone on goaltender Sarah Foss to put the Terriers up 2:38 into the game. After letting Harvard get up very early into last Tuesday’s first round loss, Poulin acknowledged a quick start Tuesday was important to her team.
“We wanted to start quickly,” said Poulin. “We wanted to show them character and show them what BU can do.”
The Terriers’ first line struck again at the tail end of the first, with an angled slapper from Kayla Tutino to send BU (19-7-2) into the first intermission with a 2-0 lead. Hayley Masters took matters into her own hands just 16 seconds into the second period, scoring through traffic in front of Terriers’ goalie Victoria Hanson to get her Huskies on the board and cut BU’s lead in half. The goal was the sophomore’s fifth in the last six games.
Northeastern (9-15-4) played evenly with BU through the rest of the second period, but both Hanson and Huskies’ goalie Sarah Foss played spot-on to keep the game within a goal. Foss especially showed composure as Poulin and her top linemates peppered the Huskies net late in the second through two power play opportunities.
A depleted Northeastern bench, missing top-liners Kendall Coyne and Lucie Povova, among others, began to get tired in the third period, but still found ways to get breakup multiple passes and dog BU opportunities.
“I was pleased with our effort considering we’re banged up and have a short bench,” said Northeastern coach Dave Flint. “I think we ran out of a little bit of gas in the third.”
With a minute left in the game, Flint pulled Foss for the extra skater, but Northeastern could not get the puck queued up in the BU zone. Poulin carried the puck down to the Huskies’ right point and slapped it into the empty net to put the game away.
In her first ever Beanpot start, Foss made 38 saves, while Hanson rebounded from last week’s disappointment with a 31-save afternoon.
The two-goal evening was as fitting of an end to the decorated Poulin’s Beanpot career as she could have in a consolation game, especially given how important the game was to BU’s postseason positioning.
“This game probably meant more for us than NU,” BU coach Brian Durocher said. “We’re sitting in a precarious spot on the PairWise. There might have been a whisker more momentum for us.”
