The Maine Black Bears hockey team rallied three times from a two goal deficit Saturday night, but couldn’t find the equalizer and ultimately fell to the New Hampshire Wildcats at Alfond Arena 4-3 in front of a sellout crowd of 5,125.
Penalties hurt the Black Bears again on this night. Just like Friday nights game in Durham, Maine struck first as Rob Michel tallied a powerplay goal at the 13:22 mark of the opening period to make it 1-0. But UNH tied it on a powerplay goal from Tyler Kelleher at 18:22, and then got another powerplay goal from Liam Blackburn just 43 seconds later to take a 2-1 lead.
The score stayed that way until the 16:29 mark of the second, as Blackburn notched his second powerplay goal of the night to make it 3-1.
Cam Brown cut into the UNH lead at 3:38 of the third period, scoring on a rebound of a Brendan Robbins shot to make it 3-2. Kelleher would bury his second goal of the goal with just 2:53 left in the game to make it 4-2 Wildcats. Maine wasn’t done as Chase Pearson scored with 25 seconds remaining on a feed from Mitchell Fossier to make it 4-3. But the Bears could not find the tying goal as the final seconds ticked off and the Cats escaped the Alfond with the weekend sweep.
Maine goalie Rob McGovern made 25 saves on the night and UNH goalie Danny Tirone stopped 38 Bears shots. Maine falls to 5-9-3 overall and 1-6-1 in Hockey East while UNH improved to 8-6-2 and 5-1-1.
Maine returns to action next Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. when they welcome American International College into Alfond Arena. UNH hits the road for a single game next weekend when they travel to Dartmouth for a 7 p.m. game Saturday.
UNH (8-6-2) 2 1 1- 4
UME (5-9-3) 1 0 2- 3
Shots on goal- UNH 29 Maine 41
Powerplay- UNH 3-8 Maine 1-4
Length of game- 2 hours, 30 minutes
