BOSTON — On Saturday, Northeastern looked discombobulated after back-to-back losses to Providence.
Three days later, after a 4-0 win over Boston University to capture the 20th Beanpot Championship in program history, the only way to describe them would be euphoric.
In a solid, complete game performance, the Huskies took down the Terriers once again in the historic tournament. After last year’s overtime heroics in a tight-fought 2-1 victory, 2025’s win was less nerve-racking, but it wasn’t any less magical for the team from Huntington Avenue.
“I’m so incredibly proud of this group, that was a hard-fought win,” said Northeastern head coach Dave Flint following the game. “They stepped up on the biggest stage tonight, and it’s great to see. From the goal line out, everybody was going, everybody was working hard.”
Compared to their opening periods on both Friday and Saturday, Tuesday’s first 20 minutes were by far stronger for Northeastern. They outshot the Terriers 11-10, and were strong on both sides of the puck. Most importantly, after struggling at the dot to start, the Huskies kept things close with a 9-8 faceoff win margin for BU — a team who came into the night winning 56% of draws over their opponents.
Opening the scoring — and notching what would eventually be the championship-winning goal — was an unlikely hero in graduate student Lily Yovetich. Coming into this season, the defender had just one goal in her four-and-a-half years in a Husky uniform. Thanks to a lucky deflection off a BU stick, Yovetich got her the second, and it opened the scoring for the Huskies just 8:31 into regulation.
The second was about as good of a period as the Terriers could have asked for. They were hard on the puck, had as many shots on goal on Northeastern’s lone power-play chance as the Huskies did themselves, and were compact when it came to blocking shots and forcing NU toward the perimeter.
They just couldn’t find a way to solve freshman Lisa Jönsson.
And it cost them. Northeastern’s top line — a trio that had a quiet weekend — bounced back, combining to register two massive goals in the frame.
First junior Lily Shannon slotted home the rebound that spilled out in front after Jaden Bogden put the puck off senior goaltender Callie Shanahan’s pads. The forward then tapped the puck in for the 2-0 Northeastern lead with 2:21 remaining in the period.
Not to be outdone, Bogden got herself on the score sheet again with her fifth goal of the season after redirecting a shot from junior Jules Constantinople at the point into the back of the cage. The third Northeastern goal came just 40 ticks after their second, a credit to the work done in front of the blue paint by the Huskies. They were in the right places at the right times, and it worked in their favor over and over again.
In the third, Northeastern opted to settle things down and play the way they’ve been successful for years: keeping the puck out defensively, and shutting down play when they had to. Even though they were down to the rotation of just five defenders on Tuesday, the five women on the ice stepped up, blocking a combined 16 shots through 60 minutes, led by Yovetich who had seven on her own.
All told, Northeastern blocked 27 total BU attempts, making Jönsson’s game just a little easier while frustrating the Terriers at the same time.
“It comes from the D-core,” said Tory Mariano of the blocked shots game. “We’re all so close, and we know we have to do just little things. All of us are just cheering for each other and we have Lisa back there too. … Honestly everyone’s willing to put their body there. We know what to do, and we pulled it out tonight.”
BU had a chance early in the final period, after freshman Éloïse Caron took her second penalty of the night. The freshman got her stick tangled up in the skates of Luisa Welcke, and that allowed the Terrier power play to go to work.
On said power play, and on all 2:56 of time on the advantage BU had throughout Tuesday’s game, the Terriers were unable to register a shot on goal, and their early chance to get back into the contest slipped away.
From there, it was a classic BU/NU tilt. Chippiness on either side, words exchanged after the whistles, and some great hockey from both teams. BU head coach Tara Watchorn had opted to switch up some of her lines following the first two periods, and while it gave the Terriers some jump (the third period was the only one in which BU outshot Northeastern, this time by a 12-7 margin), it wasn’t enough to fix everything.
“I felt that, whether it was matching speed and the players that were playing really well, I really like the idea of getting [Christina] Vote with Syd Healey and [Lindsay] Bochna,” Watchorn said of her line shifting. “They had such great speed on the wing, and they give a little bit of flair with Vote there in the middle… It was our top-nine that we were thinking about creating some chemistry in ways that we liked how they were playing.”
Watchorn wasted no time pulling Shanahan when she had the chance, calling the netminder to the bench with 5:19 to play in regulation. For a few minutes the strategy worked. The Terriers hemmed Northeastern in their own defensive zone, before the Huskies then turned it the other way to pin BU down too.
A further three chances for BU after a late media timeout were saved by Jönsson or blocked away by Caron, before finally a clear from Mariano found Bogden then Skylar Irving, and the latter shot from in front of the red line into the back of the yawning cage to seal things for the Huskies.
In the final minutes, the frustration of the Terriers was apparent. In the final 10 minutes, Bochna, Maeve Kelly, and Tamara Giaquinto all took penalties. Bochna threw a hard hit against Holly Abela that earned the graduate student two minutes for body checking with 10:10 to play. Then, following the Northeastern empty netter while trying to move Katie Davis off the puck, Kelly slammed the forward into the wall for a boarding call with 1:46 to play. Then in the last six seconds of regulation, Giaquinto slashed her stick behind the play and earned herself a trip to the box to close out the contest.
On all of their power play chances in the third, Northeastern played things safe. They kept the puck on their sticks for the most part, and outside of a few chances they reeled things in to run out the clock. And for a third time this season, it was a 4-0 final stat line between these two teams, though this time there was a trophy waiting for the Huskies at the end.
After last weekend’s performance against Providence, Northeastern needed a strong bounce back in order to come away with the win, and they did. The semifinal outing against Boston College was their best game to this point in the season, but Tuesday’s Beanpot final might just have topped it.
“I told them — ‘You [have to] hit the reset button. You can’t think about the past weekend,’” Flint said. “We got to think about how well we’ve been playing up to that point and get back there. And I thought we were equally as good tonight as we were last Tuesday.”
Outside of the tournament trophy, which returns to Matthews Arena for a 20th — and potentially final — time, individual Huskies continue to etch their name in the history books.
For senior Taze Thompson, the win Tuesday marked her fourth Beanpot title in a row. The forward won the tournament her freshman year as a member of the Harvard Crimson, and followed that up with three straight in a Husky uniform, including the final time as their captain.
Last year’s tournament MVP, Irving finishes her Beanpot career with seven points in eight games, including three goals — the most memorable being last year’s overtime winner.
And then we have their netminder, who as a freshman made 67 saves across two games. Lisa Jönsson claimed not just the Beanpot, not just the Bertagna Award for the best save percentage in the tournament, but also the 2025 tournament MVP award. She is the first goaltender to win the Beanpot MVP since Emerance Maschmeyer 10 years ago, when the Crimson took down then-ranked No. 1 Boston College in the championship game.
“It was unbelievable,” Jönsson said of her MVP win. “I did not expect that at all. I’m just so happy that we were able to pull this off and [that] I was able to perform really well tonight.”
Outside of all of that, there was what this game meant for the sport. A crowd of 13,279 fans packed TD Garden for the championship game, nearly 3,000 more than this time a season ago. The game was the fifth-most attended Women’s NCAA contest in history, and the most for any schools in the northeast.
“The very first [Beanpot] that I won was not in TD yet, but still very, very special,” Mariano said. “But just the last two, to compete in TD I feel like it’s a whole other level, and just great for women’s college hockey. I don’t know just … to play in the Beanpot here is incredible, and just to go out with the Beanpot Championship, there’s nothing like it.”
The season doesn’t end here for Northeastern, not even close. The Huskies are right back in action for another Hockey East series starting Friday, and the last month of the regular looms behind the home-and-home set.
But for now, they have a chance to rest and reset. And to say hello to a trophy they’ll never get tired of.
The Huskies are back in action on Friday, with a conference matchup against Merrimack scheduled for 7 p.m. Live coverage with Amelia Ballingall, Chase Alexander, and Armaan Vij from Matthews Arena will be available on WRBB 104.9 FM.