2020 Women’s Beanpot Notes: Northeastern Happy Its Seniors Finally Claim Title

BOSTON — Winning the Beanpot always is special for the players.

This one’s a little extra special for the Northeastern women.

Prior to Tuesday, the Huskies hadn’t won a Women’s Beanpot since 2013. But with its thrilling OT victory over Boston University on Tuesday at Walter Brown Arena, Northeastern snapped the drought.

“It’s a dream come true,” said junior defenseman Lauren MacInnis, who scored the game-winner, after the game. “We talk about it all the time, the Beanpot is the battle of Boston, it’s what all the Boston teams are battling for. So it’s just an honor to be able to play in this tournament.”

Of course, this was the last shot at a Beanpot for NU’s two seniors, Mattie Hartman and Paige Capistran.

For their teammates, making sure they got one was a big motivator.

“Just happiness, you’re just so proud of your teammates,” said tournament MVP Chloe Aurard. “(I’m) especially so happy for the seniors, they haven’t won the Beanpot (before). I think to do it for them tonight was a huge accomplishment.”

Aerin Frankel agreed.

“There’s no better feeling than doing that for them,” the netminder said.

This will be the first time since 1988 that both the men’s and women’s teams from Northeastern won the Beanpot in the same year. So, yeah. Good times on Huntington Ave.

Here are some other notes from the final day of women’s Beanpot action:

— Part of what’s so impressive about the Huskies’ win was they spent the pivotal moments of the game without their top defenseman.

Skylar Fontaine was given a game misconduct at 8:55 in the second period for roughing. After the puck was frozen by Corinne Schroeder, Fontaine and BU’s Breanna Scarpaci got tangled up, with Fontaine eventually pulling Scarpaci to the ice.

After a lengthy review, the officials determined it was worthy of an ejection.

BU scored on the resulting five-minute penalty to make it 2-2, but the Huskies settled down beyond that.

“I thought we went into panic mode a little in the five-minute major,” said Northeastern head coach Dave Flint. “We were a little caught off guard because we had pretty good momentum when we went up 2-1 and I think we went back a little bit. And then we had a media timeout and I just kind of regrouped them and told them to relax, to refocus, so I thought after that they did a really good job. When you lose your best defenseman for more than half the game it’s a tough thing to deal with and they dealt with it like champs.”

Asked if he was shocked Fontaine got a match penalty, Flint admitted he hadn’t seen the replay.

“I haven’t watched it again on film, but it is what it is,” Flint said.

— In the eyes of the NCAA, Tuesday’s Final was a tie. Once the five-minute first overtime concluded, the two teams only were playing to settle the Beanpot, but the result was marked as a tie in their records.

So while the loss was gut-wrenching for the Terriers, the reality is they have to move on with dates against UNH awaiting them this weekend.

For BU head coach Brian Durocher, moving on might actually be easier with a loss, though that doesn’t take away the sting.

“It’s real hard,” Durocher said. “But because they’re competitors, I think we have a super tough team, we’ve got a pretty deep team, you hope that we can kind of flush it aside. And sometimes when you lose it does give you a little extra momentum. It’s a lot harder being on the other side because you celebrate a little, you get all kinds of accolades tomorrow and then the next day and the next day, and you can’t quite flush it out of your system. We may have it a little easier chance to do that, but it is unbelievably bitter.”

— Boston College finished third in the tournament, and its goaltender deserves plenty of thanks.

BC earned a 3-1 victory over Harvard in the consolation game, with backup netminder Kelly Pickreign turning away 36 of the 37 shots she faced.

“She was just seeing the puck really well. … I thought she looked really confident,” said Eagles head coach Katie Crowley. “She was just very confident I thought today, I thought that was huge for us. We needed — especially when you’re struggling to score goals you want to keep them from scoring, right? I thought she did that for us so we could go and relax a little bit.”