Holy Cross 5, Boston College 4: Crusaders Stop Late Eagles Rally

In front of a large crowd on Friday evening at Conte Forum, the #7 Boston College Eagles were defeated by the Holy Cross Crusaders, 5-4.

The loss was Boston College’s first ever to an Atlantic Hockey team. The Eagles have now lost consecutive games to drop to 8-4-2 on the season, and have suffered their first home defeat of the year.

Junior forward Johnny Gaudreau extended his points streak to nine-straight games on the last of the Boston College goals, now giving him 25 in 14 games this season.

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Goal Sequence
[HC] Mike Barrett (12:24 1st; McNamara, Youso): HC 1, BC 0
[HC] Castan Sommer (13:19 1st; Vidal, Barrett): HC 2, BC 0
[BC] Kevin Hayes (14:53 1st; Linell): HC 2, BC 1

[HC] Adam Schmidt (8:00 2nd; Driscoll, Lubanski): HC 3, BC 1
[HC] Mike Barrett (12:09 2nd; Vidal, Sommer): HC 4, BC 1
[HC] Matt Vidal (16:53 2nd; Finn, Bolton): HC 5, BC 1

[BC] Ryan Fitzgerald (6:57 3rd; Linell, Hayes; 4-on-4): HC 5, BC 2
[BC] Michael Sit (15:31 3rd; MacLeod, Smith): HC 5, BC 3
[BC] Kevin Hayes (15:58 3rd; Gaudreau, McCoshen): HC 5, BC 4
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Freshman goaltender Thatcher Demko had the worst game of his brief Eagles career to date, allowing five goals on eighteen Holy Cross shots. Shots on-goal were a lopsided 38-18 in favor of Boston College, but Demko was outmatched by his counterpart, Matt Ginn, who made 34 saves in victory.

Neither team converted on the power play: Boston College was 0-for-4 and Holy Cross went 0-for-3.

Boston College played two very flat and uninspired periods in this contest, being the first and second, while turning on the jets in the third. Their problem is that they could not have afforded to coast through forty minutes of the game when the netminder was giving up bad goals. The Eagles kept trying to be too fancy on offense, often making one too many passes or simply missing on their prime opportunities. The late three-goal rally does not change the reality of the situation, which is that this may have been one of Boston College’s worst losses under Jerry York. They dug too big of a hole and have no one to blame but themselves for being in it.

The Eagles will attempt to rebound next weekend as they prepare for a critical home-and-home against Hockey East rival New Hampshire.