The University of Maine men’s and women’s ice hockey teams were looking for a pair of road Hockey East sweeps heading into their games with Vermont and Boston University respectively on Saturday.
At Boston University, Luisa Welcke scored a game winning third period goal as the Maine women’s hockey team swept the Terriers with a 3-2 win. Welcke had two goals on the afternoon, and Mira Seregely added another. Seregely also had one assist, while Elise Morphy, Alyssa Wruble, and Nicole Pateman had one assist each. Jorden Mattison made 29 saves in net. Julia Nearis and Madison Cardaci had the goals for Boston University, and Callie Shanahan made 28 stops. The Terriers fall to 6-12, 5-9 in Hockey East. Maine has won three in a row and improve to 11-10 and 8-6 in league play. The Black Bears will not return to action until a trip to Boston College on Thursday and Friday, January 5th and 6th.
At Gutterson Fieldhouse in Burlington, the Maine men’s hockey team scored three second period goals and completed the Hockey East sweep with a 5-1 win over the Vermont Catamounts. The league sweep for the Bears is the first since 1/31 and 2/1 of 2020. Grayson Arnott had the lone tally of the first period with his first collegiate goal and Maine led 1-0. Donovan Villeneuve-Houle made it 2-0 with his second of the weekend 4:12 into the second. Vermont caught a break with a fluke goal to slice the deficit in half less than two minutes later, when Carter Long sent one down ice from his own blue line that bounced and skipped past Black Bears goaltender Victor Ostman five hole. Ben Poisson helped put the game away scoring at 7:49 and then again on the powerplay at the 12 minute mark to make it 4-1. Jakub Sirota added a third period goal, as Maine now has a three game win streak improving to 5-8-1 and 2-5-1 in Hockey East. Sirota had a goal and two assists on the night and Lyndeen Breen added two assists in the win. Ostman made 18 saves in net. Gabe Carriere made 12 stops over the first 32 minutes in net for Vermont, while Oskar Autio had 14 saves over the final 28 minutes. The Catamounts drop to 5-11-1, 2-10-0 in the league. The Black Bears return to action next Saturday afternoon when they host a non-conference game against Canisius College.
