The University of Maine women’s hockey team completed a two game Hockey East sweep over UNH on Saturday afternoon in Orono, while the men’s team fell in Colorado against #1 Denver.
At Alfond Arena, Maine women’s hockey used four different goal scorers to shutout UNH 4-0 and start their conference season 2-0. Grace Heiting scored what turned out to be the game winner 1:35 into the second period. Lilli Welcke, Kennedy Little, and Morgan Trimper also added goals. Freshman Brooklyn Oakes stopped all 23 shots in net in her first career start. Heiting and Lilli Welcke also added one assist each, while Elise Morphy, Luisa Welcke, and Ida Kuoppala had one helper a piece. Ava Boutilier had 24 saves in the loss for the Wildcats, who drop to 1-4 and 0-2 in Hockey East. The Black Bears are now 3-2 overall and will host Long Island University for a two game non-conference series next Friday and Saturday.
At Magness Arena in Denver, the defending national champion and #1 Pioneers scored all three of their goals in the opening period and took down Maine men’s hockey 3-1. Mike Benning got the scoring started at 6:57 of the first, while Carter Mazur had a powerplay goal at 17:06 that turned out to be the game winner. He added another one even strength at 19:29. The Black Bears couldn’t sustain any pressure, as Denver had seven powerplay chances in the game to just two for Maine. They did get a late score from Donavan Villeneuve-Houle with the extra attacker with 39 seconds left in the game, as Killian Kiecker-Olson and David Breazeale assisted on the lone marker. Victor Ostman made 33 saves in the loss, while Matt Davis got the win with 24 stops. Casey Dornbach had two assists, while Massimo Rizzo and Sean Behrens had one each for the 2-0 Pioneers. Maine (1-1) splits the weekend after the Friday win over Air Force. Last season they didn’t win their first until the ninth game on the schedule. The Black Bears are at Bentley for a single contest next Saturday with faceoff scheduled for 5:05 p.m.
