BC Women’s Hockey Falls 2-1 To Maine, Ending Season

Boston College Women’s Hockey had their Hockey East Tournament upset hopes dashed almost before they even began on Friday night. Despite taking an early 1-0 lead on the Maine Black Bears, the Eagles’ offense fizzled out for the remaining 54 minutes as Boston College fell 2-1 in the league quarterfinals, ending their season.

The Eagles got the scoring started early on with a point-blank chance by Willow Corson, and BC was actually looking pretty good. It didn’t hurt that the Eagles came into the night 14-0-0 in Corson’s career in which the senior scored a point. But the game turned on a dime with just two seconds remaining in the first after a BC turnover in front of Abbey Levy resulted in a very late Maine goal to tie the game at 1-1.

The Black Bears scored again early in the second period off a deflection out front to make it 2-1, and they really locked down defensively from there. Boston College hit a couple posts, but for the most part really struggled to get behind the Maine defense. BC couldn’t get a goal with Levy pulled late in the third, and that was that.

It was a really frustrating year that at times felt like a slog, but at other times felt like BC was just a half a step away from having some real hope for some hardware. The Beanpot championship was a great case in point, as the Eagles came from behind four times only to fall 5-4 late to #6 Harvard. It felt like Boston College would have a puncher’s chance at stealing the Hockey East trophy if they could just get to the championship game before playing top-seeded Northeastern, but unfortunately the Eagles couldn’t quite get that far.

There’s plenty of optimism for next season, though. Boston College will get back Olympic defender Cayla Barnes and has a pretty strong freshman class coming in as well. It’s hard to picture the Eagles missing out on the tournament next year with the talent that should be returning. Unfortunately, there’s going to be several months of looking back at what could have been in the disappointing 2021-2022 season until then — but the future is bright for the Eagles.