AMHERST, Mass. - No. 15/17 University of Massachusetts hockey pulled to within a goal of Sacred Heart late in the third period, but was unable to complete the comeback, falling 4-3 in the Minutemen's home opener on Friday night at the Mullins Center. With the loss, UMass falls to 2-2-0 on the year, while the Pioneers improve to 1-1-0.
"Actually, there were a lot of good things offensively tonight," said UMass head coach Greg Carvel. "I thought we created a ton offensively, but we've got a young, inexperienced D corps, and that was exposed tonight. I thought their goaltender was outstanding. I thought we could have had a couple goal lead coming out of the first period. He made some saves that were unbelievable. We all shot him 18 to four in the second period, and couldn't score a goal, and then finally got desperate late in the game and made it close."
The Minutemen opened the scoring when Linden Alger picked a corner from the perimeter after collecting a pass from Cole O'Hara off a faceoff win from Dans Locmelis just 1:08 into the first period.
Sacred Heart managed to tie the score at 1-1 at the 8:40 mark as Jake Hewitt and Cole Galata sprung Charles Tardif on the rush and he buried a wrister from the left faceoff dot.
Late in the second period, the Pioneers took the lead, 2-1. Reid Pabich connected with a rebound from Gabe Blanchard and Marcus Joughin mid-air and batted it into an open net at 14:53.
Sacred Heart added another before the intermission. Pabich collected an outlet pass from Mikey Adamson and centered the puck for a Paul Minnehan tip in from the slot, 18:21 into the frame.
The Pioneers then opened the third with Adamson firing a shot past a screened Michael Hrabal with Jake Bongo and Felix Trudeau earning the assists 26 seconds into the period.
UMass later trimmed its deficit to 4-2 with Cam O'Neil redirecting a Lucas Ölvestad shot from the point at the 10:09 mark, which Kenny Connors picking up the secondary helper.
The Minutemen added another with an extra attacker on and less than two minutes to play when Locmelis and Ryan Lautenbach set up Owen Murray for the score at the back post.
UMass continued to threaten as the clock wound down but was unable to find the equalizer despite outshooting Sacred Heart, 36-20 on the night. The Minutemen were 0-for-3 on the power play, which included an extended 5-on-3, and went 2-for-2 on the penalty kill.
Hrabal totaled 16 saves in net for UMass and Cullen DeYoung stopped 33 between the pipes for the Pioneers.
The teams will meet again tomorrow night, October 19, in Fairfield, Connecticut, at 7 p.m. at Martire Family Arena.
