February 3, 2010 E-MAIL PRINT

Women's Beanpot: NU, Harvard advance

by Mike Zhe/

Rachel Llanes (photo: Northeastern)

Rachel Llanes (photo: Northeastern)

It was a nice little month Harvard forward Liza Ryabkina had in the opening round of the 32nd Women’s Beanpot on Tuesday.

Ryabkina scored four goals to lead the sixth-ranked Crimson past Boston College, 5-0, in the tournament’s late game at the Bright Center. Freshman goalie Laura Bellamy made 15 saves for the shutout.

For Ryabkina, the goals were her seventh, eighth, ninth and 10th of the year. For Bellamy, it was more validation that the netminding situation is OK after senior standout Christina Kessler was lost to a season-ending injury two weeks ago.

The win earned Harvard a date with Northeastern for all the beans next Tuesday. The No. 7 Huskies need extra time and a shootout to get past Boston University, 5-4, in the early game.

Freshman Rachel Llanes and junior Alyssa Wohlfeiler – a couple California kids who’ve adapted quite well out here – scored goals in a shootout to propel the Huskies, who have now gone seven straight games without a loss.

Llanes finished with a goal and two assists, in addition to her shootout tally. Annie Hogan (Medford, Mass.) and Brittany Esposito each had a goal and an assist.

It will be the first Beanpot final for Northeastern since 2004. Harvard advances to its third straight final.

NEHJ Player of the Week

Cristin Allen, sr., UConn

The offensive-minded defenseman set up the winning goal in a 2-0 win at BU and scored the game-winner in a 2-0 blanking of Providence. Surging UConn has now gone 10 games without a loss and more than eight periods without allowing a goal after the weekend wins.

Looking Ahead

No. 10 Providence at No. 7 Northeastern, Saturday

The four-way logjam atop the Hockey East standings begins getting settled this weekend, and there’s no match-up batter than this. The Friars are looking to regain the traction they had for most of January, when they rolled off 10 straight games without a loss. But they came up empty last weekend, losing 2-1 at home to Vermont and 2-1 at Harvard.

Northeastern is riding a seven-game unbeaten streak and looking for its best conference finish in the seven years of the league.

Around Hockey East

Sophomore goalie Alexandra Garcia posted her third and fourth shutouts of the year over the weekend for No. 8 UConn, stopping 48 shots in all without giving up a goal. … Former BC star Jen Buckley (Greenwich, Conn.) was inducted into the Women’s Beanpot Hall of Fame Tuesday, recognized between games at Harvard. She ranks second on BC’s all-time list for goals (104) and points (165), and captained a pair of Beanpot teams, finishing with a 4-4 record in the event. … UNH senior Micaela Long (South Boston, Mass.) extended her point-scoring streak to 17 games in the fourth-ranked Wildcats’ sweep at Maine over the weekend. It’s the longest such streak at the school since Sam Faber strung together 17 straight games in 2006, and Long sits atop Hockey East with 38 points, one more than teammate Kelly Paton. Another teammate, Kristina Lavoie, extended her goal-scoring streak to eight games, and Raylen Dziengelewski (Southwick, Mass.) now has assists in five straight games. … And belated congratulations to 11th-year Providence coach Bob Deraney (West Roxbury, Mass.), who recorded his 200th career win on Jan. 17, the back end of a weekend sweep of UNH. His Friars and UNH are the only teams to qualify for the Hockey East tournament all seven years of its existence.

Around ECAC Hockey

Prior to the Beanpot, Harvard junior forward Kate Buesser (Wolfeboro, N.H.) was honored as Player of the Week, after collecting two goals and an assist in a win over Dartmouth. Teammate Bellamy was named Goaltender of the Week. … Aleca Hughes’ (Westwood, Mass.) goal with just under two minutes left in sudden-death overtime allowed Yale to escape Brown with a 3-2 win. The Bulldogs are 5-1-1 in their last seven games and have risen to eighth place in the league standings. … No. 3 Clarkson put some distance between itself and second-place Cornell with a hard-fought 2-1 win. Brittany Mulligan’s goal early in the third period snapped a 1-1 tie. The Golden Knights now have a four-point lead over Cornell in the standings with a game in hand. … Quinnipiac bounced back from a close loss to win at Union, 3-1. Goalie Victoria Vigilanti stopped 46 of the 48 shots she saw over the weekend, which also included a 1-0 loss at RPI.

Mike Zhe can be reached at mzhe@hockeyjournal.com.

E-MAIL PRINT