The Year in Sports: When the Terriers Toppled Cornell
Six BU players score for 6-3 win
Sports fans will tell you that every game matters, but the truth is, some games matter more than others. This week, BU Today presents a five-part look back at the games, the players, and the teams that made the difference in BU’s 2007-2008 seasons.
The Terriers scored three goals in just over three minutes in the first period, and never looked back during the Red Hot Hockey matchup against Cornell on Saturday, November 24, 2007. The two teams, renewing a hockey rivalry dating back to the 1920s, played before a sold-out crowd of 18,200 at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, and six different Boston University players lifted the Terriers to a 6-3 victory over the Big Red.
Freshman Joe Pereira (CAS’11) opened the scoring 8 minutes and 50 seconds into the first period, scoring his first career goal, and then assisted when Luke Popko (SMG’10) scored 18 seconds later. Brandon Yip (CAS’09) scored on a breakaway at the 11:06 mark to cap the three-goal spurt and set the pace for the rest of the game.
Each team found success on the power play in the middle period. Cornell freshman Riley Nash put the Big Red on the board at 11:43 before the Terriers reestablished a three-goal cushion with a power-play marker by senior Pete MacArthur (SED’08) six minutes later. Boston University enjoyed its largest lead of the contest at 5-1 in the second minute of the third, when freshman Colin Wilson (CAS’11) got a tip-in past Cornell netminder Ben Scrivens.
The Big Red narrowed the lead in the third period, using a tally by junior Jared Seminoff off assists from sophomore Brendon Nash and senior cocaptain Raymond Sawada to cut the score to 5-2 with 16:16 remaining. Cornell senior cocaptain Topher Scott brought his team’s total to three with a score off a pass from Nash with 3:06 left on the clock. Then, with just over a minute remaining, Cornell pulled its goaltender to put another player on the ice for a six-on-five advantage. However, a blocked shot by Cornell found its way to MacArthur, who set up classmate Bryan Ewing (CAS’08) for an easy empty-netter to close the books on the Terriers’ fourth win of the season. The win made the team’s record 4-7-2 on the year with a 3-3-1 Hockey East mark.
The BU-Cornell rivalry dates back to 1925, when the Terriers posted a 7-2 win in the first meeting of the two teams. In the late 1960s, when both schools were members of the ECAC Hockey League, they were fighting for the title every year, each winning the league crown five times from 1967 to 1977. BU won national championships in 1971, 1972, 1978, and 1995, and Cornell took home the trophy in 1967 and 1970.
The Terriers face their current archrival, the Boston College Eagles (3-4-5, 2-3-4 Hockey East) on Friday, November 30, at the Conte Forum in Chestnut Hill, Mass. Check BU Today on Thursday, November 29, to find out where to watch the game in Terrier and Eagle territory.
Additional reporting by BU Athletics.
Jessica Ullian can be reached at jullian@bu.edu.
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