BOSTON, Mass. - The No. 9 Boston University men's ice hockey team dropped its second one-goal home game of the weekend on Saturday at Agganis Arena as No. 15/18 UMass Lowell held off the Terriers, 4-3, to win its ninth straight contest.
BU (12-9-0, 9-6-0 Hockey East) opened the scoring just over five minutes in the game, but the visitors reeled off four straight goals, capped by a shorthanded tally early in the third, to take a 4-1 lead.
The Terriers answered with their second third-period rally in as many nights, getting a power-play goal from sophomore Evan Rodrigues followed by a tally by senior Wade Megan with 9:08 left in regulation.
The River Hawks, however, got a late major power play and held on for the win to improve to 13-7-1 overall with a 7-6-1 conference mark.
Each team recorded 32 shots in the contest. Freshman Matt O'Connor made 28 saves in goal for the Terriers while junior Doug Carr made one more to earn the win. BU scored on one of its three power-play chances and the River Hawks were 1-for-7 with the man advantage.
Freshman Matt Lane got BU on the board first off a rush when he skated in towards the net and knocked a high rebound off his hip and in for his second tally of the season. Senior Ben Rosen took the initial shot on the play and freshman Ahti Oksanen also earned an assist.
Lowell evened the score before the first intermission as junior Joseph Pendenza sent home a shot from the left circle following a nice pass by sophomore Scott Wilson at 14:37 of the opening period.
Right off a faceoff on a power play midway through the second, the visitors continued their run and took the lead for good. Junior Chad Ruhwedel blasted a shot from above the left circle past O'Connor. Wilson and junior Josh Holmstrom picked up their second assists of the night on what was the lone goal of the middle period.
Junior Derek Arnold gave the visitors a 3-1 lead on a broken play at 1:40 of the third. After sophomore Alexx Privitera broke up a Lowell rush, Arnold prevented the Terriers from getting the puck out of their zone and potted his third goal of the season.
The four-goal run ended on a shorthanded tally by freshman Adam Chapie, who played the puck along the right boards and got past a BU defender before skating in all alone on the right side and finding the top right corner of the goal at 5:32 of the third.
Just over a minute later, the Terriers scored on that same penalty when Rodrigues sent home a wrister from the left side on a helper from Privitera to make it a 4-2 contest.
Megan's goal came off a rush started by Privitera, who sent Hohmann up the left side. Hohmann waited out the Lowell defense before sending a cross-ice pass to a streaking Megan, who got just enough of his stick on the puck to send it in for his team-leading 12th goal of the season.
Looking for an equalizer, BU created some strong scoring chances but had its momentum halted with back-to-back penalties, including a major spearing penalty on junior Garrett Noonan with 5:47 remaining that automatically resulted in a game disqualification for the defenseman.
While trying to kill off the major, the Terriers put together a flurry of chances near the Lowell crease but could not get another shot past Carr. The final chance came with Carr sprawled out at the goalmouth but freshman Matt Grzelcyk's offering clanged off the crossbar - BU's fourth pipe hit in the final two periods.
Combined with Friday's 6-5 setback against Northeastern, Saturday's result marked the first time all season that the Terriers lost back-to-back games. BU is just 2-4-0 since returning from the holiday break.
The Terriers will return to action on Friday (Jan. 25) when they hit the road to open up a home-and-home weekend with Providence. Game time at Schneider Arena is set for 7 p.m.