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“You can’t script it any better.”
Laura Bellamy thought she was prepared for every situation entering Tuesday’s women’s Beanpot final, but the Harvard coach never expected it to end like this.
When Carla McSweeney took a penalty on an overtime breakaway and the Crimson were given the option of a game-deciding penalty shot or a 4-on-3 power play, Bellamy let McSweeney make the call.
“What do you think?” Bellamy asked. “And she said ‘Why not?’ ”
McSweeney, just a freshman but tied for the team lead in points, stared down Boston University goaltender Mari Pietersen as she fired a wrist shot into the low right corner, and the Crimson rushed the ice, throwing gloves and sticks in the air, to celebrate their 2-1 overtime win over BU at TD Garden for the 16th women’s Beanpot title in Harvard history.
“Pure joy,” McSweeney said. “That’s a huge moment.”
The win required a 46-save effort from goaltender Ainsley Tuffy, whose 86 combined saves across two Beanpot games earned her the tournament MVP and Joe Bertagna Award for best goaltender.
After the game, Bellamy’s jacket was soaked from the dousing her players gave her, pouring water bottles over her head in celebration, and Tuffy and McSweeney — grinning from ear to ear — wore their championship ballcaps like crowns.
“You can’t script it any better,” Bellamy said.
Tied at 1-1 in the first minute of overtime, McSweeney forced a turnover and rocketed up the ice with no Terriers between her stick and Pietersen, and as she went to take her shot, BU’s Keira Healey dove into her, sending McSweeney careening into the net and handing her the penalty shot.
“You sort of have to take what’s given,” McSweeney said. “So I took a deep breath and just went for it.”
BU coach Tara Watchorn — whose team put up 47 shots and held Harvard to just 16 — was visibly angry after the loss, the third straight year the Terriers have lost in the Beanpot championship game.
“I wish we didn’t put ourselves in that situation, considering we had a lot of control over the game, and I think we could have pulled away sooner,” she said.
Gwynn Lapp opened the scoring for the Crimson just over a minute into the game, beating Pietersen on Harvard’s first shot of the night to take an early 1-0 lead. It was the first goal of the year for the junior, a native of Andover and a product of Phillips Academy.
A combined four penalties in the first period, two for each team, resulted in just one power-play goal as Greta Henderson tipped Maeve Kelly’s point shot over the shoulder of Tuffy, who entered the Beanpot final with a .952 save percentage, the second-best mark in Division 1.
Henderson’s goal tied the game at 1 heading into the second period, and while officials whistled Harvard for four more penalties in the middle frame, the Crimson penalty kill stood tall to keep the Terriers off the board.
“Obviously [we] want to play more disciplined and not be going to the box all night, but we just kept saying if that’s the game it’s going to be, we’ve got to keep working,” Bellamy said. “And if we have to kill, then we’ll kill.”
After the scoreless third, the teams headed to overtime, and BU won a face-off in the offensive zone before turning it over to McSweeney for the breakaway.
“Right now, we’ll take this, we’ll bank the experience, and we’ll make sure we never put ourselves in that situation again,” Watchorn said.
In the third-place game earlier in the day, Eloise Caron scored, Stryker Zablocki gave Northeastern the lead in the second period, and Lily Shannon added an insurance tally in the third, as the Huskies beat Boston College, 3-2.
BC goaltender Grace Campbell made 54 saves in the loss, a season-high for the senior, who last week was named to the national goaltender of the year award watch list.
Sammy Taber opened the scoring for the Eagles with three minutes remaining in the first period, and Northeastern equalized a minute and a half later. Zablocki forced a turnover behind Campbell’s net and brought it around to the front before firing a shot on Campbell. Caron was on the opposite post to collect the rebound, which she poked into the back of the net to tie the game at 1.
Northeastern’s constant pressure on Campbell paid off with two minutes remaining in the middle frame, as Zablocki’s 12th goal of the season gave the Huskies a 2-1 edge.
Shannon, the Huskies’ leading scorer (16-18–34) from Andover, who leads the Huskies in scoring (16-18–34) beat Campbell in the final frame to give the Huskies some insurance with less than 10 minutes left in the game, and Taber added her second goal with 3 seconds left on the clock and the game out of reach.
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