BC Hockey Splits The Night: Men Fall To Lowell, Women Defeat Mercyhurst

It wasn't exactly how the BC men's hockey team hoped to go into the break: BC went behind early to Lowell 2-0 and had their comeback fall short. #2 BC lost 3-2 to #10 UMass-Lowell. The Riverhawks actually outshot BC 27-25 in the game.

BC's first goal came on the power play in the second period. Steve Whitney fed Barry Almeida on a nice pass into the slot and Almeida buried it. At the time it cut the lead to 2-1.

The Riverhawks got the goal back midway through the third. BC scratched and clawed, but couldn't quite come back. After pulling Brian Billett in an attempt to tie the game, Bill Arnold whacked a waist-high puck into the net to get within one with under a minute left. Unfortunately, we couldn't pot the tying goal, and BC walked out of Tsongas with the loss.

Sometimes there are just teams that give you fits. UMass-Lowell is one of those teams to us, it seems. Despite their completely unexpected resurgence this year (Top 10 in the Pairwise? What?), BC still should be able to take care of them... unfortunately, we never seem to get many chances, and we lose far more often to them than we should.

...Ugh. I hate Lowell.

The BC women, on the other hand, had a great night in the first of two absolutely enormous games against #5 Mercyhurst.

The Mercyhurst Lakers are one of the teams who have, at least over the last several years, been one of women's college hockey's traditional powers. They have made the 8-team NCAA tournament every year since 2005.

#4 BC came into the game needing at least a split to give itself a good shot of hosting an NCAA Regional for the 2nd year in a row. The Eagles didn't disappoint, earning at least that with a 4-2 win over the #5 Lakers.

This game was nuts - the game featured a whopping 84 shots, with Mercyhurst outshooting BC 45-39.

The game played out as pretty much the polar opposite from the men's game. The BC women went up 2-0 quickly in the 1st period. Mercyhurst got one back, but BC responded to go back up 3-1. Mercyhurst then got within one - just like the BC men did - but our superstar freshman Alex Carpenter was able to come up with the empty netter (her 11th goal of the season) to ice the win.

The BC men are off until the end of the month when they take on a trio of ranked Michigan schools in the Great Lakes Invitational. The women play tomorrow in game two against the Lakers at Conte Forum at 2pm. Come out to the rink to support the ladies!