Abby Newhook Lifts BC Women’s Hockey to Sweep of New Hampshire in Overtime

Boston College Women’s Hockey snapped their four game losing streak this weekend with a sweep of the New Hampshire Wildcats in a home-and-home series. It wasn’t a perfect weekend, and it wasn’t quite as comprehensive a sweep as BC’s pair of wins over BU a few weeks back, but the Eagles got the job done. After taking a 3-1 win Friday afternoon at Conte Forum, the Eagles took a 3-2 overtime victory on Saturday at the Whittemore Center to complete the sweep and lift their record back above .500 to 8-7-1.

Both games were mighty similar in that BC looked the better team overall, but never really looked dominant. After a slow start on Friday, Abby Newhook opened the scoring in the second period, snapping a 180 minute scoreless stretch for the BC offense that stretched all the way back to November 5th. She would add another early in the third to make it 2-0 before UNH’s Emily Pinto and BC’s Caroline Goffredo traded tallies late for the 3-1 final score.

The Eagles started out a little better on Saturday with goals from Gaby Roy and Kate Ham to take a 2-0 lead into the first intermission, but the game went into a bit of a grind from there. Unfortunately, BC got a little complacent in the final frame and UNH scored twice — including once with the extra attacker in the waning minutes — to tie the game and send the matchup to overtime.

Fortunately, though, Abby Newhook capped off her stellar weekend with a sweet top-shelf snipe in overtime to give BC the 3-2 victory.

It wasn’t quite the showing BC might have hoped to see (especially with blowing the 2-0 lead in the third in game two), but based on the box scores from each game, it looks like Coach Crowley is still working on shifting around lines. Olivia O’Brien started the weekend out on the top line with Hannah Bilka and Abby Newhook, but at some point (possibly even mid-game on Friday), the coaching staffed swapped things around and brought up Caroline Goffredo to the top grouping. Goffredo has been working hard to transition to center since returning from injury a week or two back, and her return is going to allow the coaching staff to be a lot more aggressive with the top couple lines.

With only three goals scored in each game against one of the bottom teams in the league, it’ll be interesting to see if Coach Crowley continues to move things around to try out other combinations. The Eagles will have an intriguing matchup against Harvard on Tuesday evening before the team gets to take some time with their families on Thanksgiving weekend.

QUICK SHOUTS

• Freshman Kate Ham is quickly becoming one of the sharpest players on the roster. After Bilka and Newhook, she’s third on the team in goals and total points, and she’s one of the most noticeable players on the ice. She’s going to be a player you’d expect to really blow up if the team as a whole can find its scoring touch.
• Abby Newhook only scores big goals. She always seems to be the player that comes up big in overtime or late in games.
• Cayla Barnes plays about ten times her size. After BC gave up the tying goal on Saturday, she came in like a wrecking ball after the next faceoff and nearly generated a goal immediately on her own. It looked like she was visibly frustrated with BC giving up the lead and wanted to jump-start the whole team by herself. You expect the excellence she brings to the ice as a world-class player, but the attitude and aggression she brings to the game are just a joy. You’d love to have 25 players like that.