For 30 minutes on Friday night, the Boston University Terriers had every hope that they could prevent a season sweep at the hands of their intra-city rival, the Boston College Eagles.
That hope came off the stick of Bruins prospect David Warsofsky, who netted his sixth goal of the season on a Terriers' power play midway through the second period. The junior defenseman's goal built upon freshman Garrett Noonan's tally earlier in the second, and brought BU within one of the Eagles' early lead.
Unfortunately for the Terriers, they couldn't find the back of the net again in the remaining 29 minutes of back-and-forth action in front of their home crowd. They came close, outshooting the Eagles 25-14 in the final two periods, with a 14-8 edge in the third, but BC slipped away with a 3-2 victory.
The Eagles capitalized early and often to kick off the battle of Commonwealth Ave. They quickly netted three unanswered goals through the first 16 minutes of play. Surprisingly, two sophomores were at the forefront of the Eagles' attack, as Brian Dumoulin and Steven Whitney each scored for the Eagles. Senior Brian Gibbons scored the other.
While the Eagles were thriving off the energy of their younger forwards, the Terriers struggled to get off to a strong start, which head coach Jack Parker attributed to the mindset of his young squad, according to the Boston Globe.
"We've been very inconsistent,'' Parker said during the postgame. "We've got a decent record, we're in fourth place in the league, but we've been up and down with our efforts and up and down with our results because of that.
"We've got a lot of freshmen and sophomores on the team, a lot of sophomores who haven't played much. We have one senior on the team, and when you don't have a lot of senior leadership, that can sift in. They don't realize how important it is to be ready all the time."
And so the Eagles came away with the season sweep of the three-game Hockey East series with the rivaled Terriers, and remain knotted atop the conference with the University of New Hampshire.
The Eagles and the Terriers will meet once again this season in a non-conference setting, as they will battle in the semifinal round of the Beanpot on Feb. 7.
