Friday night at Harvard's Bright Hockey Center, the Brown Bears defeated
the Northeastern Huskies by a score of 3-2.  Play was brilliant at times,
scrappy at others, but I found the entire match to be very exciting.
 
Brown opened the scoring early in the first with a power play goal at
2:19. Jennie Setaro went to the sin bin for an interference penalty, and
Jaime Abel found Carly Regnier in the slot who beat goalie Shannon Myers
cleanly on the left side. Two minutes later Regnier caught a flying puck
and skated in alone down the left side. Her shot beat Myers low to put
Bruno up 2-0 at 4:31. Jordan Jiskra got the assist.
 
Brown seemed to be firing on all cylinders but lost focus after that.  The
Brown defense seemed to be on its heels for a couple of minutes and gave
NU several good opportunities. Finally Shannon Myers put Northeastern on
the board as she caught a loose puck coming off the bench, took advantage
of a 1-on-0 breakaway and put the shot past Brewer's glove at 8:03.
Jennifer Santerre got the assist.
 
Brown still couldn't seem to get it together as NU tied the match at
10:03. Acres got the pass from Hilary Witt and drove in down the left
side. She beat defenseman Julie Iler and went top-shelf on Brewer to get
the equalizer.
 
Finally Brown got its defensive act together and kept the rest of the
period tied at two although NU pretty much dominated offensively. NU
showed some good speed to beat the D and generate some good scoring
opportunities. Brown's penalty kill unit was not in top form but Jiskra
and Regnier managed to keep the puck in the NU end for a good hunk of time
to burn up time.
 
Play grew roudier in the second. Brown was still struggling a little
offensively with the loss of front-liner Marcie Deering to a knee injury
in the first. However the defense was doing a nice job of breaking up the
plays and keeping the shots off Brewer. Despite spending a lot of time in
the NU zone, the Husky defense was doing similarly well and Brown couldn't
get much good rubber on net. The NU offense looked disoriented when they
got their chances. The score remained even after two.
 
The third saw a lot of the same type of play. Again a lot of time was
spent in the Northeastern end and Brown put a little more pressure on
Myers but didn't have much luck. Northeastern went on a 5-0on-3 power play
midway through the third and really poured it on, but Brewer survived some
very close calls to keep the score tied. Finally with a little under two
minutes left in the game, with the crowd on the edge of their seats, Ali
Kenney got the gamewinner for Brown at 18:09 when Myers couldn't control a
rebound with a mixup in front. With some pressure off Brown played solid
defensive hockey for the remaining time. Myers was pulled with 1:05 to go
but to no avail.
 
Northeastern showed flashes of greatness in the first but looked confused
for most of the rest of the game. Steph Acres put some nice moves on the
Brown defense in the first. They put up a good fight nonetheless, and
Myers got a bad break in the end to lose the game.
 
Brown's defense, once they got it together, was key again in winning the
game. It has been all year as they don't have the big-time playmakers up
front. However I was confused by the apparent strategy of having the
defense skate the puck all the way into the zone -- leaving a forward to
cover the point and play defense if they lose control. It didn't look like
an effective plan.
 
Tomorrow is the rematch of the ECAC finals. I expect to see a similar
game.
 
Unofficial Brown Hockey web page: http://www.netspace.org/users/bfisk/hockey
 
 
March 20, 1998
Bright Hockey Center
Women's National Championship Semifinal
Unofficial Box Score (from notes)
 
Brown 3 Northeastern 2
----------------------
 
               1   2   3   Total
              ------------------
Northeastern   2   0   0    2
Brown          2   0   1    3
 
First Period:
-------------
Scoring:
BRN- REGNIER (Abel) 2:19 PPG
BRN- REGNIER (Jiskra) 4:31
NU- ACRES (Santerre) 8:03
NU- ACRES (Witt) 10:03
 
Penalties:
NU- SETARO (interference) 1:48
BRN- KENNEY (roughing) 10:36
NU- WALDO (interference) 10:36
BRN- KENNEY (interference) 12:57
 
 
Second Period:
--------------
Scoring:
none
 
Penalties:
BRN- JONES (roughing) 2:33
NU- MARTIN (roughing) 2:33
NU- ACRES (interference) 11:08
BRN- ILER (tripping) 11:45
BRN- ILER (holding teh stick) 19:19
NU- TOTTEN (roughing) 19:19
 
 
Third Period:
-------------
Scoring:
BRN- KENNEY (Graat, Jiskra) 18:09
 
Penalties:
NU- ACRES (cross-checking) 9:24
BRN- KENNEY (cross-checking) 10:38
BRN- ILER (hooking) 10:49
 
 
 
Shots on Goal:
--------------
BRN-   15  9   8 -- 32
UNH-   16  6  14 -- 36
 
Goaltending:
------------
BRN- Ali Brewer (60:00, 30 saves)
NU- Shannon Myers (58:55, 33 saves)
 
 
 
--                                                                        --
Brian Fisk                                                [log in to unmask]
 
Brown Women's Hockey: 1998 ECAC Champions!
 
HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey;  send information to
[log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.