LOWELL, Mass. -- The No. 16 ranked UMass Lowell Hockey team fell to Providence, 4-1 in the Hockey East series finale on Saturday night at the Tsongas Center.
UMass Lowell drops to 10-4-4 overall (5-2-3 HEA), while the Friars improve to 9-5-3 overall (6-4-2 HEA). Despite the loss, the River Hawks won the three-game season series, 2-1 with the River Hawks winning both meetings on the road.
"I didn't mind our effort, I liked our start despite having a few pucks go past us," said UMass Lowell Head Coach Norm Bazin. "I thought our special teams let us down a little bit, specially on the penalty kill and our power play execution was slow."
Greg Printz added an empty-netter for his 11th goal of the season to seal the win for Providence with 1:47 left in the final frame.
Junior forward Connor Sodergren (Tewksbury, Mass.) got the River Hawks on the board with 12:09 left in the third period off a pretty cross-slot pass from freshman forward Andre Lee (Karlstad, Sweden). Sodergren has posted four goals in his last four contests for UMass Lowell, while Lee has amassed seven points (1g,6a) in his last four games.
Patrick Moynihan made it a 3-0 game in the Friars' favor just 1:53 into the third stanza with PC's second power play tally of the contest.
Providence took an early 2-0 lead midway through the first period after a power play goal from Tyce Thompson at 7:01 and then a goal from Cam McDonald at 10:27.
Senior goaltender Tyler Wall (Leamington, Ont.) stopped 31 shots in his 17th start of the season, which included 14 saves in the third period. PC's Michael Lackey notched 27 stops in his ninth with of the season for the Friars.
Charlie Levesque (Russell, Ont.) and Lucas Condotta (Georgetown, Ont.) each won a game-high 11 face-offs for the River Hawks. Levesque, Matt Brown (Wood Ridge, N.J.) and Anthony Baxter (Oakville, Ont.) each tallied a team-high four shots on goal in the losing effort.
The River Hawks return to action on Sunday, December 29th for an exhibition game against the Central Canadian All-Stars. Game time from the Tsongas Center is 5 p.m. The game will be streamed nationally and internationally via CBS All-Access.
