On Friday night Umass-Amherst found out just how difficult it is to ice skate up hill.<\/p>\n
Three first period goals were just too much to overcome for the Minutemen (4-6, 2-3 Hockey East) as they fell to UMass – Lowell (7-2, 5-2 HEA), 3-2 in front of over 3,400 at the Mullins Center.<\/p>\n
The Minutement outshot the River Hawks 24-15 and following Lowell’s third tally, the Minutemen took control of the game but ended falling just short.<\/p>\n
“I think we established our game in the first period,” Lowell coach Blaise MacDonald said. “But we totally got away from that in the second and third.” <\/p>\n
A Steve Slonina goal at 12:49 of the first proved to be the game winner. Mark Concannon made a nifty move from behind the net before skating out in front and firing a backhander off of Mike Johnson’s pads. Johnson could not control the rebound, as Slonina rushed the net and jammed home the rebound.<\/p>\n
Freshman Peter Trovato scored just 1:39 into the period but the Minutemen could not get another past UML goalie Cam McCormick to knot the game. <\/p>\n
UMA had a myriad of opportunities in the final frame including a down low two on one between Jimmy Callahan and Thomas Pock that McCormick snuffed out with the trapper.<\/p>\n
The Minutemen had a power play with under ten minutes remaining but again they could not solve McCormick.<\/p>\n
The second period saw absolute domination on the part of the home squad. Down 3-1, UMA turned up the offensive juice but McCormick was more than up to the challenge.<\/p>\n
He hindered a flurry of Minuteman shots on the power play in the first half of the period including a golden chance for defenseman Nick Kuiper at the top of the circles and a goal crease whiff by Jimmy Callahan.<\/p>\n
UMA helped McCormick out with some missed chances, as Kelly Sickavish hit the far post from the left circle and Thomas Pock fired a one timer from the slot right into the UML tender’s chest.<\/p>\n
“I was trying to go top corner,” Pock said. “I just couldn’t get it up.”<\/p>\n
The River Hawks broke open the floodgates early in the first period, as they scored three goals on their first five shots.<\/p>\n
Laurent Meunier got Lowell started with a floating wrist shot just :18 seconds in. Lowell put a lot of traffic in front of UMA goalie Johnson, who allowed a goal on the first shot for the second consecutive night.<\/p>\n
“It was a soft goal,” Johnson said. <\/p>\n
Just nine minutes later Meunier was in on the action, assisting on linemate Yorick Treille’s goal that gave the visiting Hawks a 2-0 lead. Meunier stickhandled into the slot on the power play before threading the puck back to Treille who beat Johnson five-hole.<\/p>\n
Slonina put Lowell up three goals before a Tim Turner power play goal cut the deficit to two.<\/p>\n
Turner, camped out in front, took a point feed from Martin Miljko, swiveled and fired the puck past UML’s Cam McCormick. Turner’s tally stopped a school record shutout streak of 209:25 by McCormick.<\/p>\n
With the win Lowell keeps pace with New Hampshire atop the conference. UMA’s setback marks the second night in a row that the Minutemen have outshot and outplayed its opponent but skated away with the loss.<\/p>\n
“I hate losing,” Cahoon said. “I don’t think any of these kids like it either.”<\/p>\n
The River Hawks second consecutive victory over the Minutemen clinches the Alumni Cup (going to the winner of the season series between the sibling schools) for the fifth consecutive year. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Friday night Umass-Amherst found out just how difficult it is to ice skate up hill. Three first period goals were just too much to overcome for the Minutemen (4-6, 2-3 Hockey East) as they fell to UMass – Lowell (7-2, 5-2 HEA), 3-2 in front of over 3,400 at the Mullins Center. The Minutement […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2502"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2502"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}