Just 14 seconds into Boston College women’s hockey’s game against Colgate, Casey Borgiel was called for roughing, and the Eagles went on the power play. But that opportunity—just like every other one BC was faced with over the course of the game—ended with the Eagles scoreless.
BC (9–10–1) ultimately fell to Colgate (10–10–1) 3–0 at home on Saturday afternoon, marking the Eagles’ first-ever home loss to the Raiders.
BC’s missed power-play opportunity to open the game was an example of what has been a season-long struggle for BC. The Eagles entered the game 7 of 56 on the power play and went 0 of 2 with the advantage in the opening period.
“We mixed it up a little bit, and did a few things differently,” BC head coach Katie Crowley said of BC’s power-play strategy.
The Eagles created a strong stretch of chances midway through the first frame, including three shots in 16 seconds from Tricia Piku, Ava Thomas, and Sammy Taber. Colgate goaltender Farah Walker stopped all of them, quelling any offensive momentum for BC.
“I thought we had scoring opportunities to be able to make it a little bit more of a game there,” Crowley said.
BC avoided disaster late in the period when Colgate’s Emma Pais rang a shot off the crossbar with less than 30 seconds remaining, sending the game into the first intermission still scoreless.
The second period started much like the first, as a penalty on Pais for hooking resulted in a power play. Once again, the Eagles came up empty. A little more than halfway through the period, however, Colgate broke through.
Colgate made the game 1–0 with Elyssa Biederman’s ninth goal of the season at the 11:11 mark. After passes from Casey Borgiel and Avery Pickering, Biederman narrowly slipped the puck under BC goalkeeper Grace Campbell’s glove.
It was Biederman who struck once again about four minutes later, finishing a rush set up by Ava Wood and Alexia Aubin to make it 2–0 Colgate.
“It’s hard when you go down two, and we just weren’t able to fight back,” Crowley said. “That goes with having a little bit of a younger team.”
Any hope of a comeback was quickly dashed. Just 1:33 into the third period, Biederman completed her hat trick with a power-play goal from the top of the circle, securing a 3-0 Colgate victory.
“We’ve got to find ways to score goals,” Crowley said. “That’s the name of the game, and where we are right now, we’re not able to do that quite yet.”