MANCHESTER, N.H. – The Saint Anselm College women's ice hockey team dropped its home opener to No. 5/6 Northeastern, 5-0, on Wednesday evening.

A crowd of 1,086 fans at Sullivan Arena saw the Hawks fall to 1-3 on the season while the Huskies, ranked as high as fifth in National Collegiate women's ice hockey according to the USCHO Division I Women's Poll, improve to 3-2.

The teams battled through a scoreless opening 20 minutes as Northeastern held a 22-6 advantage in shots on goal. The best chance for Saint Anselm to score came in the final minute of the first period as junior Devin Porazinski (Parker, Colo.) fired a wrist shot from the slot which was saved by Gwyneth Phillips. The ensuing rebound spilled out to Porazinski, whose second-chance strike was also denied by Phillips.

Freshman Tyra Turner (Andover, Minn.) nearly got the Hawks on the board in the opening minutes of the second period as she drove down below the goal line. She would cut back up ice and across the front of the goal, launching a point-blank wrister that Phillips turned aside with a sprawling save.

Northeastern would go on to strike three times in the second half of the second stanza as Murphy found herself open in the slot and fired a wrist shot by junior goaltender Allie Kelley (East Berne, N.Y.) at 11:56 of the period. Murphy added her second tally of the period just 2:05 later as she made a quick move on the power play to gain clearance and fire a shot on a screened Kelley, finding the twine in the top right of the cage.

The Hawks nearly got out of the period with just a two-goal deficit but Brooke Hobson managed to keep a bouncing puck in at the Saint Anselm blue line. Hobson corralled the puck and sent a quick snap shot by Kelley, beating her on her glove side to push the lead to 3-0 with 10 seconds to go in the second frame.

Murphy would go on to register two more goals in the third period to finish the night with four goals and one assist for five points (4-1=5).

The Huskies out-shot the Hawks by a 56-16 margin. Northeastern posted two power play goals on six opportunities while Saint Anselm was 0-8 with the extra skater. From the face-off dots, the visitors won 35 of the game's 57 draws.

Kelley stopped 51 of 56 shots in the losing effort, falling to 1-3 on the season. Phillips stopped all 16 shots she faced and improved to 1-1.

The Hawks return to action on Friday, Oct. 22 at Yale with the opening puck drop scheduled for 6 p.m.