The Vermont Catamounts got goals from four different players on Friday afternoon, picking up their first win of the season with a 5-4 win over the Maine Black Bears in Hockey East men’s action at Gutterson Fieldhouse in Burlington, Vermont.
Vermont (1-4-2) got a first period goal from Jordan Kaplan three minutes in for an early lead. Levi Kleiboer evened things for Maine with a powerplay goal at 7:18, before Christian Evers scored a powerplay goal at 13:14 and another even strength marker at 14:57 to make it 3-1 Catamounts. The Black Bears did respond when Lynden Breen put in a rebound just over a minute later to cut the deficit to 3-2. The hosts extended it once again to a two goal advantage when Tristan Mullin put in a powerplay tally at 12:08 of the second. Maine got an early third period goal, his first of his collegiate career by Tristan Poissant at 1:51, but Vermont had the answer again when Carter Long made it 5-3 20 seconds later. A late goal by the Black Bears Jakub Sirota with 1:02 with an extra attacker wasn’t enough, as the guests dropped their fourth consecutive game after an opening night tie and shootout win over UNH, falling to 0-4-1.
Matthew Thiessen made 25 saves in net in the Maine loss. Sirota added an assist to go along with his goal, while both Adam Dawe and Jacob Schmidt-Svestrup had two assists each. Tyler Harmon had 24 stops in the Vermont net, and Evers led the offense with two goals and an assist on the afternoon. The teams finish off their two game conference series Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. Meanwhile, due to a presumed positive test on the Maine women’s hockey team their two game series at Holy Cross Friday and Saturday evenings has been postponed.
