LOWELL, Mass. - No. 17/14 Massachusetts hockey fended off a late rally to earn a 5-3 win over No. 16/15 UMass Lowell at the Tsongas Center on Saturday night. With the win, the Minutemen improve to 18-12-4 overall and 9-9-4 in Hockey East play, while the River Hawks fall to 15-13-4 overall and 8-11-3 in league action.
"A tough place to play, a tough place to win," said UMass head coach Greg Carvel. "UMass Lowell is a hard team to play against and I give our guys a ton of credit coming here. We don't usually score a lot of goals in these games against Lowell. Most of them are 2-1, 2-2, like last night. For us to find a way to get four and an empty netter was a statement for me. I'm very proud of our group, this was a big weekend. To get 5-of-6 points against a very good Lowell team is going to go a long way for us."
Sophomore Aydar Suniev opened the scoring just 67 seconds into the contest, redirecting home a shot by freshman Larry Keenan from the right point after classmate Daniel Jencko fed him the puck up the wall.
UMass then converted on its first power play of the night to increase its lead to 2-0. Jack Musa picked up a pass from Suniev and found junior Cole O'Hara for the one-timer finish from the left faceoff dot at the 4:34 mark, his 20th goal of the season.
Midway through the second period, UMass Lowell cut its deficit in half. Lee Parks tipped in a shot from Nick Anderson at the high slot at the tail end of a power play opportunity at the 10:26 mark. Musa regained the two-goal cushion for the Minutemen 4:19 into the third as he corralled a pass from senior Lucas Mercuri, carried into the corner and sent a tough-angle shot into the top of the net from along the goal line.
However, the River Hawks answered back two minutes later to close the gap to 3-2. Libor Nemec's redirecton from Isac Jonsson's shot at the left point found its way past goaltender Michael Hrabal.
UMass Lowell then tied the score at 3-3 with Owen Cole roofing in a loose puck at the net front from Connor Eddy and Ben Meehan 8:58 into the third.
Junior Kenny Connors regained the lead for the Minutemen at 10:55, firing a shot past Beni Halaz on the rush after picking up the puck from senior Ryan Lautenbach in the neutral zone after he knocked down a clear from junior Kennedy O'Connor.
Owen Murray then capped the scoring with an empty net goal 18:40 into the final frame.
UMass Lowell ended the night with a 33-27 shot advantage. Both squads went 1-for-2 on the power play.
Hrabal totaled 30 saves for the Minutemen and Halasz stopped 22 shots for the River Hawks.
UMass will be back in action next Friday, March 7, when the squad will play host to No. 5 Maine at the Mullins Center at 7 p.m.
