The No. 10 Dartmouth women's hockey team lost to No. 6 Boston College, 4-2, on Wednesday, after allowing the Eagles to take control early with three goals in the first period. Wednesday's game marked the third consecutive loss for the Big Green (6-4, 5-3 ECAC) following the team's red-hot 6-1 start.
"We went in knowing that it would be a big game for us," forward Reagan Fischer '12 said. "We wanted to go in strong, but it ended up that we were playing catch-up the whole game."
It was only the second time in the history of the series that Boston College defeated Dartmouth. The first time was in an NCAA Quarterfinal match-up in 2007.
Dartmouth failed to capitalize on several key opportunities throughout the course of the game, converting only one of eight power play opportunities.
"Our power play has been struggling recently, but we felt good going into the game," Fischer said. "We made some changes, but we haven't been getting as many shots as we hoped. It was one of our main problems."
The Big Green dramatically outshot Boston College, 29-16, but Eagles senior goalie Molly Schaus was perhaps the best player on the ice on Wednesday, racking up 27 saves on 29 opportunities to minimize the damage inflicted by Dartmouth's offensive onslaught.
Big Green goalie Lindsay Holdcroft '14 saved 12 of 16 shots over the course of the night but settled down after the opening period and stopped eight of nine shots following the first break.
Any momentum Dartmouth may have had at the outset was erased by the Eagles' quick start. Within six minutes, Boston College had already scored two goals, and by the end of the first period the score stood at a lopsided 3-0.
Boston College's first goal came 4:43 into the first period off the stick of freshman forward Melissa Bizzari, assisted by freshman defender Meagan Mangene and sophomore forward Caitlin Walsh.
Senior forward Kelli Stack provided the next two Eagle scores, one only a few minutes later at 6:07 off assists by Bizzari and sophomore forward Alison Szlosek and the second within a minute of intermission after receiving help from Dru Burns and Mangene.
The first Dartmouth goal came 15 minutes into the second period, when forward Amanda Trunzo '11 scored the team's only power play goal of the game off an assist by defender Sasha Nanji '13 to put the team within two of the Eagles, 3-1. It was Trunzo's sixth goal of the season.
The game-sealing goal came near the end of the third period, when BC freshman forward Taylor Wasylk fired the puck between the pipes to push the score to 4-1 off of passing from junior forward Mary Restuccia and sophomore forward Ashley Motherwell.
Fischer scored the Big Green's second goal with less than a minute left, after the game had already been decided. Camille Dumais '13 provided the assist her team-leading eighth assist of the season.
Despite the Big Green's recent three-game losing streak, Dartmouth is second in the ECAC conference standings with five wins in conference play. The Big Green trails only Cornell University, who is 6-0 against conference opponents.
Dartmouth does not face off against another ECAC member until 2011, when it travels to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on Jan. 7.
The Big Green women will next face the University of New Hampshire in Durham, N.H., on Dec. 11 at 2 p.m. in a non-conference matchup.
"We're definitely going to use the two weeks [of off time] to our advantage," Fischer said. "We had a meeting after the game against BC to make sure we're on the same page. We're going to be doing extra practices and conditioning to get back on track."
