By Jewel Della Valle

The women’s hockey team suffered two crushing defeats in its season-opening series at Ohio State this weekend. Though NU fell to the Buckeyes 9-3 Friday night, and 7-1 Saturday night, senior assistant captain Crystal Rochon said the games were closer than the scores indicated.

“The scores were a lot worse than the actual games were,” Rochon said. “The shots were pretty close for both teams, so it wasn’t as much of a loss as it looks on the scoreboard.”

Ohio State outshot the Huskies 34-24 in game one and 26-18 in game two, but Northeastern’s downfall came on penalty kills and failure to capitalize on power plays.

Head coach Laura Schuler said the Huskies played well and Ohio State’s dominance was a result of good offense.

“Our girls actually played really, really well,” Schuler said. “A lot of the goals [Ohio State] scored were quality goals. … But then unfortunately we did have some weak goals, so I think … [since] it was our goalies’ first time playing, they have to build a little bit more confidence.”

In Friday’s game, the Buckeyes came out strong, scoring the first goal after just 74 seconds. They scored again four and a half minutes later on a power play. Northeastern cut the 2-0 deficit in half at 17:57 when freshman forward Annie Hogan scored her first collegiate goal unassisted. The Huskies’ hopes of closing the gap were squashed in the second period when Ohio State scored four more goals making it 6-1 to secure the win.

Northeastern scored two more goals in the third period, only to be outmatched again by three more goals from Ohio State. At 1:13, senior assistant captain Marie Desrosiers scored with assists from Hogan and Rochon. Senior forward Nikki Petrich scored in the 17th minute, with the assist from senior captain Amy Goodney.

Four of Ohio State’s nine goals came on power plays, while Northeastern couldn’t take advantage of nine power play opportunities and only tallied seven shots on goal. Two of Ohio State’s goals were shorthanded.

“We haven’t done too much on penalty kills during practice,” Rochon said. “Basically they just scored some lucky goals and we’re just lucky that it’s the start of the season and we found out that was what we need to work on.”

Freshman goalie Sydney Arbelbide got the start for Northeastern, playing 35 minutes, recording 16 saves and allowing six goals. Sophomore transfer Stacey Scott played 24 minutes, allowing three goals while tallying nine saves.

Northeastern looked ready to split the series after the first period during Saturday’s game.

Petrich scored her second goal in as many days in 13th minute, taking feeds from freshman forwards Chelsey Jones and Katy Applin for the first goal of the game. Ohio State tied it up four minutes later with a power play goal to end the period. But Ohio State made it 2-1 at 6:16 in the second period and never trailed again, scoring three more goals in the period, and five more goals in the game.

Scott played three quarters of the game in net for the Huskies and letting in all seven goals with 15 saves. Arbelbide saw 15 minutes of ice time and had four saves.

Northeastern’s penalty kill and power play problems haunted them again, as three of Ohio State’s seven goals came on power plays. Northeastern only had eight shots on goal on six power play opportunities.

Petrich said a positive that came out of the losses was the opportunity to face a team like Ohio State, which plays in a typically tougher conference than Northeastern.

“They have a stronger league in general so I think that will help with us in trying to stay up there [and be] stronger and faster,” Petrich said.