AMHERST, Mass. - For a second straight night, junior captain Ryan Ufko came through with the overtime winner as No. 14/12 University of Massachusetts hockey picked up a 4-3 victory over UMass Lowell on Senior Night at the Mullins Center on Saturday. The win moves the Minutemen to 19-10-3 overall, 12-8-2 in Hockey East, while the River Hawks drop to 8-21-4, 4-15-3 in league action.
"I didn't like the way we started the game, said UMass head coach Greg Carvel. "I think it's kind of the human nature. We win last night, hard game the road, we weren't ready to compete. I thought Lowell was really good tonight. I thought they played a really good road game and maybe deserved to win. Our third periods are always our best and it was again tonight. I don't know how other teams have done but you know we're putting ourselves in a spot to hopefully play a home playoff game."
The Minutemen opened the scoring on the penalty kill when Ufko sprung classmate Ryan Lautenbach on a breakaway that started from the UMass blueline and Lautenbach buried his third shorthanded goal of the season at the 8:40 mark of the first.
UMass Lowell equalized when Jak Vaarwerk cleaned up a Minutemen turnover in front of the UMass net from point-blank range 12:29 into the first. Vaarwerk scored again 1:04 later with another unassisted tally from just inside the offensive zone.
Freshman Aydar Suniev collected an outlet feed from sophomore Michael Cameron and junior Scott Morrow, took it up the ice and picked a far corner over goaltender Luke Pavicich's shoulder from the right faceoff dot to tie the score at 2-2, one minute in to the second period.
The River Hawks responded, however, converting on the power play with Isac Jonsson sent a wrister through traffic into the back of the UMass net at 11:57. Dillan Bentley and Ben Meehan collected the assists as UMass Lowell took a 3-2 lead into the second intermission.
Then midway through the third on the power play, Ufko sent a shot from the blue line through a screen for the equalizer, set up by sophomore Kenny Connors and Suniev at 9:22.
With the Minutemen getting another opportunity with the man advantage in overtime, Ufko buried a pass from Suniev and Morrow into an open net for his ninth of the season and third of the weekend, 2:44 into the extra frame.
UMass finished with a 39-25 advantage in shots and went 2-for-4 on the power play, while UMass Lowell was 1-for-2.
Hrabal ended the night with 22 saves for the Minutemen and Pavicich turned aside 35 for the River Hawks.
UMass will close out the regular season next Friday and Saturday, March 8-9 to face No. 9 Maine in Orono.
