Hanover
The No. 6 Eagles took the game’s first seven shots and 16 of the initial 20. They led, 3-0, eight seconds into the second period and looked a bit bored the rest of the way. Laura Schuler, Dartmouth’s first-year coach, was left to praise her team’s penalty-killing unit, which denied the visitors’ only power-play opportunity and which has allowed opponents to score once in their last 15 chances.
“Our girls never gave up,” said Schuler, whose squad played its fifth game in a 10-day span. “They emptied their tanks and played hard right to the end.”
Whatever fills Dartmouth’s tanks isn’t nearly as potent as what fueled the Eagles’ attack. Boston College (12-3-3) competed for only the third time during the last 12 days, but even allowing for rest, its players seemingly moved twice as fast at times.
“We really focused on our breakout in practice because they get in on you so quick on the forecheck,” Dartmouth’s Kennedy Ottenbreit said. “They have great players, but we do, too. They capitalized on their opportunities and some lucky bounces.”
Perhaps, but the Big Green has no one nearly as talented as Eagles defenseman Megan Keller, a 5-foot-11 junior who earned first-team All-American honors last season and was a finalist for national player of the year. She scored a goal on Wednesday night. Delaney Belinskas led the Eagles with two.
Boston College, which has won its last six contests, has five players averaging at least a point a game and went 40-1 last winter, its lone loss coming to Minnesota in the national title game. Dartmouth’s leading scorer is defenseman Eleni Tebano, who has seven points in 11 games.
Adding to the hosts’ uphill battle was the absence of injured players Brooke Ahbe, Emma Korbs and Sara Lopez-Wheeler. That meant the Big Green was essentially skating a line short, and it showed during an opening five minutes in which Boston College dominated. The second period’s start wasn’t any better, with the puck not entering the Eagles’ zone during the first three minutes.
Dartmouth has lost four games by a goal this season, and Schuler pointed out that 10 of its first 12 games are against teams ranked No. 14 or better. But the Big Green, which visits Vermont on Saturday, has also been outscored by a cumulative 33-15 and taken 127 fewer shots than the opposition.
Goaltender Robyn Chemago has played all but five of Dartmouth’s games during the past three seasons, and she’s been rewarded with increasingly worse teams in front of her. The senior made 32 saves on Wednesday and was hung out to dry on several of the goals she allowed.
The Big Green graduated three of its top scorers from last season, when it won only six games, and has triumphed in just four of its last 31 contests, but Ottenbreit remains publicly optimistic.
“I don’t think the record is what makes a great team,” she said. “Sticking together and working hard every day does. And we’re doing that.
“I think we do have goal scorers, but for some reason, pucks aren’t going in right now. Once we get a few, the flood gates are going to open.”
Said Schuler: “We’re trying to create a winning culture. We have to celebrate small successes and trust the process.”
Notes: Referee Mark Andrews wore a No. 14 decal on his helmet, honoring Denna Laing, a 2014 Princeton graduate who wore that number with the Tigers. Laing suffered a spinal cord injury last winter while playing for the professional Boston Pride and uses a wheelchair… Boston College junior goaltender Katie Burt, who began the season as the NCAA’s career leader in winning percentage (.929), hails from Lynn, Mass., and the backplate of her mask features a road sign noting the town was established in 1629. … Boston College held a 38-25 shot advantage. … Dartmouth leads the teams’ series, 25-7-3, a remnant of a time before Boston College ramped up its women’s hockey program.