March 29, 2024
MEN'S COLLEGE HOCKEY

Crowder, UMass tip Bears UMaine needs win to host quarterfinals

AMHERST, Mass. – Scott Crowder is very familiar with the University of Maine’s hockey program. He spent five of the first six years of his life in Orono when his dad, Bruce, was the assistant coach at Maine.

He came back to haunt the Black Bears Friday night.

Crowder, a sophomore left winger for the University of Massachusetts, scored his first goal of the season 4:08 into the third period to supply a valuable insurance goal as the Minutemen beat Maine 3-1 at the Mullins Center.

The win gives the Minutemen a two-point lead over Maine in the battle for the fourth and final home-ice berth in the Hockey East quarterfinals.

Vermont began the night one point behind UMass and Maine but the Catamounts were upset by UMass Lowell 2-1 and can’t finish any higher than fifth.

UMass will enter Saturday night’s game against Maine needing just a tie to lock up fourth place. However, since the season series between Maine and UMass is tied 1-1, a Maine win will supply the Black Bears with the fourth spot since they would win the tiebreaker.

In that scenario, Maine then would host the Minutemen in the best-of-three quarterfiinals series next weekend.

UMass is now 17-11-5 overall, 14-9-3 in Hockey East. Maine fell to 21-11-2 and 14-11-1, respectively.

UMass snapped a five-game winless skein against Maine (0-4-1) at the Mullins Center, which is 10 feet wider than Maine’s Alfond Arena.

Crowder tracked down a high flip by Mike Kostka in the right circle and his quick wrist shot hit a Maine defenseman’s stick and deflected in off Maine backup goalie Dave Wilson.

“One of their defensemen was hooking me and the puck was rolling so I just tried to get a shot off,” said Crowder.

Wilson said, “I dropped down as soon as he shot it, like I’m supposed to. The puck hit a defenseman’s stick, hit my shoulder and then hit the crossbar and went in.”.

“It’s pretty cool [to score against Maine],” said Crowder. “That rink [Alfond Arena] is where I learned how to skate.”

He added that his dad, who is an assistant coach with the AHL’s Portland Pirates, was at the game which made it extra special.

“My mom [Lucie] comes to all the games but my dad isn’t able to get to many,” said Crowder.

The Minutemen had a decided edge in territorial play as they were a step quicker than the Bears and continually beat them to loose pucks. The Minutemen were able to sustain the forecheck longer and get to the net front while Maine was often held to one shot and few sustained forechecks.

UMass outshot Maine 37-28 and had 19 Grade-A (high percentage) shots on goal to Maine’s nine. Wilson finished with 16 Grade-A saves to Jon Quick’s eight for UMass.

Cory Quirk’s power-play goal snapped a 1-1 tie at the 10:09 mark of the second period and proved to be the game-winner.

Maine senior left wing Josh Soares had opened the scoring just 3:24 into the game with his 19th of the year but UMass junior defenseman David Leaderer equalized 4:15 later.

Quirk’s goal was his 12th of the year and was set up nicely by Mike Kostka.

Kostka received the puck from Chris Capraro at the right point and snapped a diagonal pass to the far post to the unattended Quirk, who didn’t get much on the puck but got enough of it to trickle it over the goal line past the helpless Wilson.

“Chris Capraro made a great play to get it to Mike and Mike fed me. I just re-directed it in,” said Quirk.

Maine had a great opportunity to tie it up late in the middle period but Michel Leveille and Bret Tyler hit goal posts 20 seconds apart.

Leveille fired from the middle of the slot after two Josh Soares shots had been blocked by the defense. The puck squirted to Leveille and he hit the crossbar.

Maine’s top line of Leveille between Teddy Purcell and Soares continued to cycle the puck and Leveille fed a cross-ice pass from the corner to Tyler in the left faceoff circle only to see Tyler ring his shot off the post.

“It hit the elbow where the post meets the crossbar,” said Tyler.

Soares had started the scoring 3:24 into the game off a two-on-two with Purcell.

Purcell created a shooting lane between two UMass defensemen and wristed a low sizzler. Quick kicked it out but Soares pounced on the rebound and chipped it over Quick’s glove into the short-side corner.

Leaderer equalized off a Chris Davis rush.

Davis was tied up by a Maine defenseman but the puck rolled between the faceoff dots and Leaderer swept a backhander over Wilson’s blocker into the far corner.

Quirk said the Minutemen played a thorough game.

“It was a good win,” he said.

Leveille and Tyler said the Bears’ performance left a lot to be desired.

“We didn’t play well. It was disappointing,” said Leveille, who added that the Minutemen did a much better job controlling the imaginary third circle in front of each net.

He also said that the Bears left backup goalie Wilson, playing in place of the injured Ben Bishop (groin pull), out to dry.

“They played extremely well and we didn’t match their intensity,” said Tyler.

Tyler also said the Bears received a solid performance from Wilson.

“He gave us a chance to win,” said Tyler.

The Maine players said the one silver lining is they still control their own destiny.

UMass coach Don Cahoon said he was pleased that his team won the special teams battle. They had the game’s only power-play goal, holding Maine scoreless in three tries. Maine entered the game leading the country in power-play percentage (25.4 percent).

MINUTEMEN 3, BLACK BEARS 1

Maine (21-11-3) 1 0 0 – 1

UMass (17-11-5) 1 1 1 – 3

First period – 1. Maine, Soares 19 (Purcell), 3:24; 2. UMass, Leaderer 4 (Davis, Anderson), 7:39. Penalties: Maine, Tyler, interference, 3:52; UMass, Davis, contact to the head-roughing, 10:14; Maine, Bellamy, contact to the head-roughing, 18:18.

Second period – 3. UMass, Quirk 12 (Kostka, Capraro), 10:09 (pp). Penalties: Maine, Tyler, cross checking, 9:33.

Third period – 4. UMass, Crowder 1 (Kostka), 4:08. Penalties: UMass, Ortiz, roughing, 5:57; UMass, Leaderer, tripping, 14:53.

Shots on goal: Maine 10-11-7-28; UMass 16-13-8-37

Goaltenders: Maine, Wilson (37 shots-34 saves); UMass, Quick (28-27)

Power-play opportunities: Maine 0 of 3; UMass 1 of 3

High-percentage scoring chances: Maine 5-8-6-19; UMass 13-11-3-27

Attendance: 6,218


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