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Senior forward Cal Kiefiuk scored two goals for the Minutemen
Massachusetts Edges Maine, 4-3, To Sweep Weekend Series
Senior forward Cal Kiefiuk scored two goals for the Minutemen

Box Score

ORONO, Maine - University of Massachusetts hockey completed its first weekend sweep at Alfond Arena since 2010 by defeating Maine 4-3 on Saturday night in the teams' regular season finale. With the win, the Minutemen move to 13-16-5 overall, 7-14-3 in Hockey East action, while the Black Bears fall to 15-15-5, 9-11-4 in league play.

UMass will head into the Hockey East Tournament as the No. 9 seed and will play at No. 8 seed Boston College on Wednesday, March 8 in the tournament's opening round at 7 p.m. on NESN+.

"It was important that we scored first again," said UMass head coach Greg Carvel. "And then we scored second. It was a lot of having to defend tonight, not surprisingly. Maine plays really tough in this building and I thought the team checked hard and the goaltender was huge. I thought the team did a good job keeping shots to the outside, opportunistic scoring, good goaltending. It was enough to get us the win."

Massachusetts opened the scoring 6:13 into the first period as Reed Lebster centered the puck from behind the Maine net for Cal Kiefiuk to swat home from the top of the crease. The duo connected again at the 13:46 mark with Kiefiuk burying a wrister from the top of the left faceoff circle off a feed from Lebster.

UMass increased its lead to 3-0, 4:35 into the second period with sophomore Scott Morrow picking a corner on the power play with Lebster and sophomore Ryan Ufko collecting the assists.

The Black Bears responded with a power-play goal of their own at the 12:29 mark with Nolan Renwick finishing off a pass from Ben Poisson and Jakub Sirota from the high slot.

Maine closed the gap to one 4:04 into the third with Poisson putting back a rebound from David Breazeale and Thomas Freel, bringing the score to 3-2.

Sophomore Lucas Mercuri briefly gave UMass back a two-goal cushion, finishing at the net front from junior Aaron Bohlinger and Morrow at 8:35, but Sirota responded for the Black Bears with his tally from Lynden Breen and Donavan Villenueve-Houle just 21 seconds later.

Maine kept the pressure on in the final 10 minutes of the third, but the Minutemen defense held firm despite being out-shot 38-14 on the night. Netminder Cole Brady finished with 35 saves. Both teams were 1-for-3 on the power play in the contest.

Lebster led UMass with a career single-game best three assists. Kiefiuk posted his second multi-goal game of his career and Morrow contributed a goal and an assist to bring his season total to 31 points, joining UMass Hall of Famer Thomas Poeck as the only Minutemen blueliners in program history to post multiple seasons with 30+ points.