STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Northeastern head coach Dave Flint knew that his team would need to play “near flawless” to advance past No. 1 Ohio State.
But for every question the Huskies asked, Ohio State had every answer, and then some.
It was not the outing that Northeastern wanted, as an early first-period collapse proved to be insurmountable, with the top-seeded Buckeyes shutting out the Huskies 5-0 to advance to their fifth-straight national title game.
It’s been a phenomenal show of dominance over the last half-decade from Ohio State head coach Nadine Muzerall, who recently signed a five-year extension with the program following speculation of her departure to her alma mater, newly-coachless Minnesota.
Northeastern survived the first ten minutes of the game unscathed, outshooting the Buckeyes 4-1 early, but the success was short-lived. Ohio State swarmed the Huskies’ defensive zone, applying pressure to sophomore goaltender Lisa Jönsson from all fronts, and it would not take much longer for them to break through.
Jönsson has been stellar for Northeastern all year, but one area of concern has been the massive rebounds she oftentimes allows in dangerous areas. Against Minnesota, the Huskies handled this well, stacking the crease with their own players before anyone on the Gophers could get a touch on the puck.
But Ohio State had scouted Jönsson and knew exactly what they were getting with her.
“[Northeastern’s] goaltending is very strong,” Muzerall said. “Very aggressive, though, she would come out quite far, and we thought that we could get her on lateral plays and also rebounds.”
A rebound is exactly what led to the Buckeyes first score, as junior forward Jocelyn Amos ripped in a shot from the top of the right circle which Jönsson was able to pad away. But the Northeastern defense had lost sightlines of the puck, and awaiting on the back door was senior forward Joy Dunne, who had no trouble finding the back of the net with Jönsson having stepped far up in the crease, giving Ohio State the lead just over halfway through the first period.
Once they broke through, the Buckeyes did not look back.
The physicality began to ramp up, with Northeastern sophomore forward Éloïse Caron being called for bodychecking, leading to the game’s first special teams sequence. While Northeastern was able to hold off Ohio State’s power play, it provided a huge momentum swing towards the number one seed. With under three and a half minutes to go in the first period, the Huskies tried to break through neutral territory, but junior forward Kaia Malachino skated a stellar backcheck to recover the puck.
Malachino carried herself all the way to the left faceoff circle, and Jönsson once again stepped up out of her crease. The Buckeyes forward flicked in a wrist shot, and while Jönsson was able to kill some of the puck’s speed, it had enough to trickle into the net behind her after contact, doubling Ohio State’s lead.
Just over a minute later, the Buckeyes continued to pour the offense on. Freshman forward Hilda Svensson broke through the Northeastern blue liners in her own defensive end, took the puck all the way through neutral territory and to the right faceoff circle, and sent a cross-ice feed to her linemate, fellow rookie Sanni Vanhanen. With just enough space in front of her, the Finnish national was able to catch Jönsson out of position and tap the puck into the back of the net to bring the score to 3-0.
As time wound down in the first, the Huskies looked to the intermission to try and reset. But a loss of focus in the waning moments of the first period proved fatal, as Northeastern appeared more than content to wait out the clock, Ohio State capitalized. The puck floated all the way around the Buckeyes’ offensive zone, and with less than a second on the clock, it slid to the edge of the left faceoff circle. Senior defender Emma Peschel drove in from the blue line and slapped the puck through traffic, finding the corner of the goal to make it a 4-0 game just before the buzzer sounded.
“The people that I talked to, everyone’s like, ‘Get through the first 10 minutes, because they come out flying,’ and I thought, ‘All right, we got through the first 10 minutes and things are going good,’” Flint said. “We even got to that last media time out at just under five minutes, it was 1-0. And then before I blinked, it was 4-0. And that’s the skill, the speed, the power, of that team: you let your guard down for a second and that’s what’s going to happen.”
Northeastern faced a hard reality check in the locker room after the end of the first frame. Senior captain Lily Shannon knew that the team needed some motivation.
“Something we talked about in the locker room, we’re not a team that gives up,” Shannon said. “Yeah, [the score was] 4-0, but we looked at each other in the locker room, and I asked, ‘Are we team that gives up?’ Everyone shook their head no.”
With a bit more pep in their step, the Huskies delivered a stronger defensive effort in the second period. They maintained a much heavier presence in their own end, trying to force fewer breakaways and placing their bodies in the right ways to both limit and block Ohio State’s shots. After the Buckeyes had recorded 20 shots on goal in the first period alone, they tallied less than half of that in the second frame, only putting nine pucks on Jönsson’s net.
But while Northeastern stepped up defensively, their offense did not match, with their own shot tally halved from eight in the first to just four in the second, despite a few power plays throughout the frame. Ohio State entered the matchup averaging nearly 12 penalty minutes per game, with the Buckeyes more than happy to entertain any physicality the Huskies sent their way.
Northeastern’s power play had been up and down all year, and Friday afternoon marked one of those valleys. Throughout the course of the 60 minutes, Northeastern spent eight on the advantage, but Ohio State’s penalty kill easily neutralized everything the Huskies threw their way.
Having staved off Ohio State in the second period, Northeastern looked to regain control and force something past senior netminder Hailey MacLeod in the third, but after being dissatisfied with the way the Buckeyes played comfortably in the second, Muzerall inspired her squad to attack the final period with far greater vim and vigor.
The relenting pace was too much for Northeastern to match, fatigue setting in deeper and deeper as the clock ticked down. It did not help that their deficit only grew; two and a half minutes into the third period, Malachino won the puck back in a battle in the corner of her offensive zone. She sent it up to the blue line, where senior defender Sara Swiderski was waiting. After controlling the puck, she fired a shot into traffic. Northeastern freshman forward Emy McDermid was in the wrong place at the wrong time, as Swiderski’s shot glanced off the shaft of her stick and was directed over Jönsson’s right shoulder to make the score 5-0 in favor of the Buckeyes.
While a few more special teams shifts dotted the final box score in the remainder of the frame, Northeastern could only muster up three shots on goal the entire final 20 minutes of play. Exhaustion was rampant along the entire Huskies’ bench, and though they put up a valiant defensive effort after the collapse at the end of the first period, the offense just wasn’t there to match, as Ohio State secured a 5-0 win in the Frozen Four semifinals.
“It must have been the first 15 minutes of the game, maybe 10 minutes of the game, I don’t think they expected us to go out as hard as we did,” Shannon said. “And they adjusted, and they put their foot on the gas, and I don’t think we calibrated with them. I think we stepped on the gas, and then they did, and then we needed to step on the gas.”
The loss marks the end of the careers of seven Northeastern seniors (forwards Lily Shannon, Holy Abela, Lily Brazis, Mia Langlois, and Jaden Bogden, defender Jules Constantinople, and goaltender Paige Taborski), most of which were present in Northeastern’s last title run in the 2022-23 season, where they suffered a similar 3-0 shutout to none other than the Ohio State Buckeyes.
To reach a Frozen Four in their now final season is a significant achievement that should not be overlooked . Especially when comparing this iteration of the Huskies to prior years’ lineups, stacked with Olympians and PWHL athletes, the 2025-26 team had truly battled their way to the national semifinals over the course of a season that truly tested them in every way.
“We didn’t have that star power,” Flint said. “We were more blue collar, meat and potatoes, and get out there every night and work and grind out wins. For me, it’s probably the most rewarding trip to the Frozen Four, because I don’t think too many people predicted that we would be here. It’s a testament to this group and our leadership, how special they are, to battle along and get to this point.”
Ultimately, Northeastern will head back to Boston without any hardware to show for the season. Regardless, it’s a year to be proud of for the Huskies. The youth and talent is there, the culture is strong, and they will certainly be back, likely much sooner than later.
For now, though, it’s back to the drawing board.
Daisy Roberts is a hockey, basketball, and baseball broadcaster and writer for WRBB Sports. She has been covering Northeastern Athletics for five years. You can read her content here and follow her on X here.