‘Oh my god, we just knocked off Northeastern:’ BU women’s hockey continues midseason surge with cathartic win in Beanpot semifinal

And can you blame her? She hadn’t scored a point all season. Her team hadn’t scored on the power play in two months. Her program had not defeated Northeastern in the Beanpot in six years.

So when the Boston University women’s hockey team heckled its hero Tuesday night, it took a moment for BU’s senior captain to realize what she had just done. Then, as the rocking Walter Brown Arena crowd was entranced, it hit her.

Oh my god Carey thought to himself. We just won. We just took out Northeast.

To see? Even the Terriers, who have once again found a way to believe in themselves when no one else would, can’t quite understand what they’re doing. There will be a lot more to see in the women’s hockey world with Carey’s reaction when they see the score from this Beanpot semi-final. But if there’s one conclusion to be drawn from BU’s 2-1 overtime win, consider it this: These Terriers have officially arrived. And when they legitimately beat the best in the country, as they did on Tuesday night? It probably shouldn’t be that surprising anymore.

BU (7-11-3, 5-6-2 Hockey East) has lost just one of its last nine games, four of which were against teams ranked in the USCHO poll. The Terriers also won a trophy during that span, with a Belpot final victory over Harvard, the group they will face next Tuesday at TD Garden as they look for their third Beanpot in program history.

The Crimson (10-8-1, 5-6-1 ECAC) are no joke either. But now neither is BU.

“It was really cool to see,” said head coach Tara Watchorn. “You could really feel us turning the corner in the second half of the first semester, and kudos to the players for taking ownership going into the break and being ready to go again when we got back.”

Think about this team’s journey. Last year’s Hockey East title-winning group, different but made up of many of the same players, came flying out of the gate and never looked back. His conviction from the start, considering BU was coming off three straight losing seasons, was remarkable.

And yet. The momentum Watchorn’s third team has found is perhaps even more impressive.

BU fell to 1-7 when it was swept by Northeastern on Halloweekend. They were defeated 10-4 in that series and it really wasn’t that close. The Terriers were soft, fragile and lifeless, so far off from their expectations that Watchorn had to tell reporters it was unfair to even expect them to pick up where they left off in 2024-2025.

But on Tuesday? BU was fast, physical and tenacious during the pre-check. They imposed themselves on the Huskies all night, and when Northeastern (16-6-0, 10-1-0 HE) inevitably laid siege to them, the Terriers survived and found a way to strike back.

“We’ve come a pretty long way since October,” senior Luisa Welcke said Monday morning, and she was absolutely right.

“We talked about it in the locker room,” Carey said after the game. “We went through a lot of adversity in that game and we kept going for the entire 65 minutes. And that’s something we might not have done at the beginning of the season.”

NOW BU shelled for the first four minutes before the Terriers’ raw third line stepped onto the ice and forced a turnover on the windshield, resistance that BU desperately needed. The line was immediately rewarded when freshman wing Lexie Bertelsen rammed a puck past star Husky goaltender Lisa Jönsson for her second of the year. She had some things to say as she skated back to the bench, and she and her linemates (juniors Riley Walsh and Greta Henderson) were behind them the entire game, constantly causing problems on the front leg and creating strange skater rushes.

“’Energy line.’ If you looked it up, they would be right there in the dictionary,” Watchorn said.

Not that the other two hadn’t brought the juice as well. After switching forwards almost every game last season, BU has largely stuck with the same top nine as they have gone into the season, and all three trios have proven they can hold their own against any opponent. Welcke, twin sister Lilli (both seniors) and junior assistant captain Neely Nicholson excelled again. BU’s top line (senior assistant captains Sydney Healey and Clara Yuhn and sophomore Kaileigh Quigg) didn’t score, as they often do, but moved well through the zones in an end-to-end match.

Also give credit to BU’s defensive core, which blocked 11 shots and made crucial last-resort plays all night. When Northeastern beat them, red-hot junior goalkeeper Mari Pietersen (35 saves) was back on her feet.

“Once again Mari gave us a chance to win,” Watchorn said. “And it was a combination of Mari doing her job and our D doing their job. We looked at our rebound retention in the defensive zone: 77 percent. The D boxed out, grabbed sticks and Mari made the first save.”

It felt like a cathartic performance for a squad that leaked goals earlier this season. Speaking of catharsis, look no further than that much-maligned power play Finally scored – just the fourth of the season with 68 attempts. BU was so bitten by the skating advantage that assistant coach Megan Meyers said she went crazy on the bench at UNH on Saturday because her team just couldn’t bury the solid chances it created. Carey’s goal was definitely not an A goal, but the defender saw an effective screen from Quigg and Healey in a good position for a rebound.

“I knew if it hit her, Syd would bury it,” Carey said. “So let it rip.”

The hope, now that someone has gone in, is that the floodgates will open.

“It was a big weight off our shoulders,” Carey said. “But even if we don’t score, we took a lot of momentum out of our power play with the next few shifts. But I still think it was very good for our confidence.”

To trust. Momentum. BU has a ton of that right now, and on Tuesday night even mighty Northeastern couldn’t stop it.