On Friday night, the Maine Black Bears were down in Boston to take on the Boston University Terriers, unfortunately losing to them in overtime. 4,646 fans filled the seats at Agganis Arena, the home rink for BU, but it would be the Black Bears and fans who would leave disappointed.
Both teams were scoreless after 20 minutes of play.
University of Maine’s third-year forward Frank Djurasevic opened up the scoring just one minute and 22 seconds into the second period. His goal was assisted by third-year forward Max Scott and first-year defenseman Jeremy Langlois, who was injured back in November. The Terriers answered back, tying the game at 1-1 in the second period. The goal came from first-year forward Jack Murtagh, assisted by second-year defenseman Cole Hutson and third-year defenseman Gavin McCarthy.
The Black Bears would go on to take a 2-1 lead to end the second period with the second goal scored by Scott and the assist coming from first-year forward Jaden Lipinski.
After 40 minutes of play and a very close game, third-year forward Cole Eiserman shot and scored the equalizing goal to make it a 2-2 game four minutes and 27 seconds into the third period. The assists came from third-year forward Jack Harvey and first-year forward Ben Merrill. BU battled back for a tie game after falling behind one goal in the first period and again to end the second.
With no one scoring to win in regulation, the game went into overtime. First-year forward Ryder Ritchie scored the game winning goal to close out a hard fought game 3-2 for the Terriers. The winning goal was assisted by Harvey and second-year defenseman Sascha Boumedienne.
Both goalies stood on their heads in this game with UMaine’s third-year Albin Boija stopping 28 of 31 shots faced and BU’s Mikhail Yegorov stopping 28 out of 30 faced, a solid, even matchup.
On the power play, UMaine was 0 and 3 for goals. The Black Bears had three powerplays and could not generate anything off of them. The Terriers were 1 and 1 for powerplays generating one goal off of the one powerplay they had.
Although the Bears lost this game, player efforts do not go unnoticed. Scott had his 13th multi-point game in his collegiate career.
The matchup history between these two teams has always gone either way. In recent matchups over the past year, Maine has won two games before Friday night’s loss. The Black Bears are now 19-26-3 against the Terriers for all-time wins, losses and ties.
With a loss in the books, UMaine is now 14-11-2, and BU is 13-13-2.
Looking ahead to the upcoming games for the Black Bears, they take on University of Connecticut at the Alfond Arena on Feb. 13. The Huskies are 15-7-3 as of Feb. 3, with both teams looking to gain momentum as the post-season approaches.
UMaine beat the Huskies last March during the Hockey East Championship in Boston winning 5-2 and they hope to bounce back after this past weekend’s loss to BU.
