AMHERST, MASS- The University of Maine men’s ice hockey team ended a six game winless streak Friday night by defeating the UMass Minutemen 5-2 at the Mullins Center. It is the first win since January 8th when they beat Colgate 3-1 at home. It is also the first road victory of the year for the Black Bears (1-7-1).
Maine earns just their third Hockey East victory of the year (3-8-2) while earning their sixth victory overall (6-15-6). Blaine Byron scored just under a minute and a half into the game to give the Bears an early 1-0 lead. UMass would respond midway through the period on a Ivan Chukarov powerplay goal to make it 1-1.
Brendan Robbins gave Maine back the lead just 23 seconds into the middle period as his second career goal made it 2-1 Maine. Conor Riley gave Maine some breathing room as his goal at 11:45 made it 3-1 at the end of two.
The Minutemen weren’t done though as Austin Plevy connected on a powerplay goal just over six minutes into the final period to make it 3-2. But the Bears had an answer for that just over two minutes later. Brian Morgan and Steven Swaveley scored goals at 8:19 and 8:30, only 11 seconds apart, to make it 5-2 and put the game away.
Swaveley, Riley, Byron and Robbins each had a goal and an assist in the game. Matt Morris earned his fifth victory of the season in net stopping 28 of 30 shots. Nic Renyard took the loss for UMass with 22 stops on 25 shots while his replacement to start the third period Alex Wakaluk made 8 saves on 10 shots. UMass ended 2 for 7 on the powerplay while Maine was 0 for 2. UMass falls to 7-16-4 and 2-10-4 in Hockey East.
The same two teams will battle again at the Mullins Center on Saturday night. Faceoff is scheduled for 7 p.m.
