The tables turned Saturday afternoon for the Yale. A night after rallying from a two-goal deficit in the third period only to lose in overtime, it was the Bulldogs’ turn to squander a two-goal advantage against their Buckeye hosts.
Yale (10-10-0) needed just 20 seconds of the second period to score its two goals, and the Buckeyes (12-9-1) used the next 13 minutes to score three and skate to a 3-2 victory in front of a season-high crowd.
“We blew it,” said Yale coach Hilary Witt, whose team has dropped seven of its last eight games. “We had a 2-0 lead, and same old story. We’ve done it three times in the last two weeks, and we can’t do that.”
After the first period it didn’t look like Yale had much of a chance to grab the lead against the Buckeyes. The OSU defense dominated the first period of play, and the Bulldogs looked slow to react to OSU’s tempo. But after both teams skated into their locker rooms tied at zero, Yale managed to put two quick goals past OSU’s sophomore netminder Erika Vanderveer and grab the lead.
“I think we got up two goals and then people weren’t as aggressive as they had been before that, and when you stop being aggressive in our system, you’re going to get hurt,” Witt said.
Junior right winger Deena Caplette, who simply dumped the puck at the net and lost her stick in the process, scored Yale’s first goal. The Bulldogs won the subsequent faceoff and took the puck to the net, where sophomore center Kristin Savard found senior right defenseman Erin Duggan for a top-shelf one-timer.
The Buckeyes took advantage of Yale’s lack of urgency with the two-goal lead.
“The game is 60 minutes, so you try to do the things you do well as a team,” OSU coach Jackie Barto said. “You get the first one, then it kind of goes from there.”
OSU tied the game up at 15:58 of the second period as a result of a nifty move by senior forward Jeni Creary, whose stickhandling forced Yale junior goaltender Sarah Love to commit low. A flick of her stick lifted the puck past an outstretched Love, and the game was knotted at two.
“It’s definitely disappointing to be up 2-0 and not get it done,” Duggan said. “We’ve done this a couple of times during the season, and it’s frustrating for players to see other players making the same mistakes we’ve talked about all season.”
The game-winner came from the stick of freshman forward Pamela Patterson, who tallied her first goal of the season by cutting to the net and redirecting a pass from junior forward Jana Harrigan.
“We had a little bit of a tough time in the second period when they scored those two goals,” Barto said. “We made some little mistakes, but we didn’t lose it. We stayed focused and recaptured the energy in the rest of the second period and had three big goals.”
Despite its best efforts, Yale could not find a way to get an equalizer after falling behind. The Bulldogs’ best scoring opportunity came at 11:00 in the third, when Savard and sophomore right defenseman Christina Sharun had a two-on-one situation but were stopped cold by Vanderveer.
“I think our team stepped it up and we played really well,” Duggan said. “We just didn’t get enough shots on net and weren’t generating enough offense, but I think we did well.”
OSU’s goaltender turned away 18 of the 20 shots she faced, while Love stopped 24 of 27. It was the second night OSU outshot the Bulldogs and won by only one goal.
“I guess facing shots is good, because it keeps you in the game and keeps you focused,” Love said. “Losing two games by any amount of points sucks.”
Vanderveer said the team was determined to not lose its composure in the final seconds of regulation like it had during its past two games.
“We’re on fire,” Vanderveer said. “Whenever we get going I don’t think anyone can stop us. After losing to [Minnesota-Duluth] last weekend there was no way we were going to let this team come in and walk all over us.”
Both teams played a much more physical contest than the previous night. Four players received penalties for roughing after a scuffle broke out at 17:08 in the third period behind the OSU goal, and players from both squads were seen finishing checks and exchanging words.
“That’s the kind of game I like to play,” Duggan said.
After a difficult sweep at home, OSU has momentum heading into its showdown with No. 1 Minnesota next week, while Yale is left scratching its heads and wondering how it managed to drop two nailbiters in Columbus.
“We’ve just got to find a way to win games like that,” Witt said. “We’ve got to win one-goal games. It was on the road. It was tough. I thought we battled pretty well and our kids worked hard, but we’ve got to start winning some games like that.”
“It was a big sweep for us,” Vanderveer said. “We knew we needed these wins. Our goal is to reach the NCAA finals this year, and sweeping Yale was a step in that direction.”
