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Students began lining up three hours early outside of Alfond Arena to see the University of Maine take on rival University of New Hampshire Friday night. Arena staff opened the doors 15 minutes early when the line of students reached all the way to College Avenue.
The sellout crowd wasn’t disappointed either, as the Black Bears narrowly defeated UNH 2-1 in overtime.
The Wildcats outplayed UMaine for the first 40 minutes but were unable to pull even with UMaine until the third period, sending the game into overtime. Senior assistant captain Martin Kariya sent the Blackout Weekend crowd home happy with his overtime goal.
Special teams proved a major difference in the game. The Black Bears came into Friday night with a 90.3 penalty kill percentage. They improved their kill percentage by keeping UNH’s power play unit scoreless with a 0-6 showing. The Black Bears were also able to score on the power play, going 1-3 for the night.
Senior Robert Liscak gave the Black Bears a 1-0 lead when he scored the power play goal in the first period after UNH goalie Mike Ayers was unable to control a shot by UMaine’s Colin Shields.
Despite the goal, the Wildcats controlled most of the play in the period, outshooting the Black Bears 15-6. That trend continued in the second, as UNH outshot UMaine 12-6, but they were still held off the board by UMaine freshman goalie Jimmy Howard.
“We generated a lot of shots. You don’t beat Maine unless you generate a lot of shots. The guys generated a lot, but the goalie handled it. Some of them he didn’t even see and he still made the saves,” Dick Umile, UNH’s head coach said of Howard.
“I saw a good 85 to 90 percent of the shots,” Howard said. “The defense did a good job of clearing out the front [of the net].”
UNH’s hard work finally paid off when their leading scorer ,Lanny Gare, and linemate Preston Callander made a great play to beat Howard.
“They dropped the puck to Gare,” Howard said, “he shot it and it deflected off a stick in front of me and beat me over the shoulder.”
It was just 29 seconds into over time when Kariya scored his fourth goal of the season. Chris Heisten grabbed a turnover in the UNH zone and was able to slide the puck to Kariya, who was all alone on the right wing cutting to the net. Kariya went to his back hand and put the puck over the right pad of Ayers to give UMaine the win.
The Black Bears improved to 9-1-1 overall and 4-0-0 in Hockey East. UNH dropped to 7-2-2 and 5-2-1 in Hockey East.
“We’ve never had a start like this in Hockey East,” Kariya said. “We’ve had to play tough teams in Boston, a tough defensive team in UMass and now UNH. To have four wins is a bonus.”
Whitehead’s enthusiasm was a bit more cautious.
“It’s early [in the season], but we’re in the hunt,” he said. “The message is that we can play with anybody. We still need to improve, I don’t think we played our best game in the first and second [periods]. But at the same time, we rose to the occasion in the third and OT.”
UMaine will have one more game before the Thanksgiving break when they take on the Quinnipiac Bobcats Tuesday night at Alfond Arena.
Bangor Daily News