Northeastern goalie Aerin Frankel makes 31 saves in Beanpot win over Harvard

Northeastern’s Aerin Frankel is among the nation’s top goaltenders and Harvard challenged her standing in the opening round of the 42nd annual Women’s Beanpot Tournament on Tuesday night at Walter Brown Arena.

The 5-foot, 5-inch sophomore from Briarcliff Mannor, N.Y., made 31 saves to lift the No. 3 Huskies to a 3-1 victory over No. 10 Harvard in the opener. Frankel improved to 21-3-1 and owns the nation’s top save percentage (.959) and is second with a 1.08 goals against average.

The Huskies can end a six-year drought when they take on the winner of the Boston College vs. Boston University in the title game on next Tuesday night.

“She reads the plays extremely well,” said NU coach Dave Flint. “Obviously she is not a big goaltender so she needs to be able to do that and she has been really good this year finding pucks in traffic. Those are two strong areas for her, anticipating plays and finding pucks.”

Harvard junior goalie Becky Dutton made an exceptional showing in just her fourth career start. Dutton absorbed 35 shots and held up under a withering barrage in the third period with the Huskies intent on scoring an insurance goal. Chloe Aurard’s tally with 11.1 seconds remaining went into an empty net.

“She is probably the toughest kid we have on our team,” said Harvard coach Katey Stone. “She wills herself to make saves, she wills herself to put us in a position to be successful and keep us in a game. Her compete level is over the top. She’s fun to watch, it’s not always textbook goaltending but it’s pretty fun.”

First line center Alina Mueller put the Huskies on the board with an unassisted goal at 15:09. The sophomore from Winterthur, Switzerland, intercepted a clearing feed above the right circle and skated unchallenged into the low slot.

Mueller picked her spot and unleashed a wrister that beat Dutton to the far post for her 19 goal and 50th point of the season.

NU went ahead 2-0 at 3:27 of the second on a nice collaboration between sophomore defenseman Skylar Fontaine and the snipers on the first line.

Mueller fed Aurard, who slipped it back to Fontaine at the top of the right circle. Fontaine one-timed a low slapper that found the near post for her 13th of the season, a remarkable number for a backend player.

“We talk about it in video that we should look for those soft areas,” said Fontaine. “I saw Chloe coming around the net and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to jump down towards the net and call for it.

“There was an opening and I got the puck to the net and it went in.”

Harvard scored on an odd man rush at 7:57. Freshman right wing Shannon Hollands took a feed from center Kristen Della Rovere and skated into the left circle. Hollands dinged a wrist shot off the far post for her second of the season.

Frankel made two big stops on Becca Gilmore and Kay Hughes with 80 seconds remaining to preserve the 2-1 lead.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2GTBPPw