Chestnut Hill, MA - The Boston College women's ice hockey team defeated the University of Maine 6-2 on Saturday afternoon to take the season series 2-1 and record their nineteenth victory of the season.
BC controlled the play for much of the first period but was held scoreless by Maine senior goaltender Genevieve Turgeon.
In the final seconds of the period with the score knotted at zero, defenseman Maggie Taverna gathered the puck in the neutral zone and skated up the middle and fired a wrister at Turgeon who made the initial save. The puck bounced out of the crease to junior Allie Thunstrom who flipped a pass to freshman Mary Restuccia, waiting in the corner of the net for the tip in with 49 second left in the first period.
The Eagles continued their attack in the second period, netting a goal 43 seconds into the frame. On the power play junior Kelli Stack gathered the puck off the wall and cycled it around to Meghan Fardelmann and Mary Restuccia before dekeing the goalie for her 19th goal of the season and the 2-0 lead.
Taverna added a goal to her earlier assist with a wrister from the slot for a 3-0 Eagles lead.
Maine got one back halfway through the second after Molly Schaus stopped Vanessa Vani's initial shot. The puck slipped in back of her pads as she tried to clear it sliding back through the crease where Jennie Gallo of Maine managed to get a stick on it before Schaus could cover it with her pad
Stack added another shorthanded point to her weekend tally midway through the second. Coming out of a scrum along the wall, Stack broke through the Black Bears defense and skating in on Turgeon, pulling the goalie to her forehand and flipping the puck into the back of the net for the 4-1 lead.
The Eagles closed out the period with Meghan Fardelmann potting her ninth goal of the season off a rebound from Becky Zavisza with just over a minute to play in the second to put the Eagles up 5-1.
A quieter third period had BC swapping Schaus for freshman Kiera Kingston, with the teams trading shots and saves until Danielle Welch flipped a loose puck into the net from the top of the crease at 12:55 off a rebound from Shannon Webster and Brie Baskin to give the Eagles a five goal lead.
Maine followed up with their second goal of the game at 15 minutes in to cut BC's lead to four.
The Eagles hung on to win 6-2. BC put 27 shots on net to Maine's 20. Schaus stopped 10 shots in two periods, and Kingston made 8 in the win.
The Eagles will put their three game win streak up against the Harvard Crimson in the championship game of the Women's Beanpot on Tuesday night at 8 p.m. at Matthews Arena in Boston.