It was more of the same for the University of Maine’s men’s hockey team.
The Black Bears’ road woes and penchant for blowing third-period leads continued as the University of Massachusetts Minutemen received third-period goals from Steven Iacobellis and Shane Walsh to erase a 2-1 deficit and beat Maine 3-2 in a non-conference game at the Mullins Center in Amherst, Massachusetts, on Friday night.
UMass had lost its last seven home games and been outscored 42-16.
But Maine now has a 12-game road winless streak (0-11-1) dating back to last season and is 0-7 this season. Maine is 1-19-3 at opposing rinks since the start of the 2013-14 season.
Maine is 4-5 this season when taking a lead into the third period.
UMass improved to 6-14 while Maine fell to 6-14-1.
The teams will play again 7 p.m. Saturday.
Henry Dill finished with 35 saves for the Minutemen while Sean Romeo made 19 for the Black Bears.
“We didn’t fall apart in the third period,” insisted Maine coach Red Gendron. “We made a couple of mistakes and they scored.
“We played great for most of the game but we didn’t finish the game and that’s the bottom line,” added Gendron. “It wasn’t like they started taking it to us. We were in complete control of the game entering the third period but we needed to build on that lead and not let them back into the game. That’s not what happened.”
Dan Renouf’s first-period goal staked Maine to a 1-0 lead and the two teams swapped shorthanded goals in the second period as Walsh equalized for UMass before Conor Riley regained the lead for the Black Bears.
Iacobellis tied it at the 10:27 mark of the period by firing the puck past Romeo during a scramble in front of the net. Walsh and Troy power also assisted.
It was Iacobellis who set up Walsh’s game-winner with 2:58 remaining as he intercepted a Maine pass just inside the offensive blue line and slipped it across to Walsh, who redirected it behind Romeo.
Renouf opened the scoring with 4:22 left in the initial period when he pounced on an Eric Schurhamer rebound and flipped it past Dill. Cam Brown also assisted on the play.
Maine had a 16-8 edge in shots on goal in the period but Dill kept his team within striking distance.
Romeo was also sharp as he stopped two two-on-ones and a four-on-two.
Maine killed off a pair of five-on-threes in the second period but surrendered a shorthanded goal when Walsh converted a three-on-two at the 10:01 mark.
Brandon Montour assisted on the goal.
But junior defenseman Riley restored the lead it by jumping into the play and converting a Brown pass. Blaine Byron had passed the puck to Brown and Brown came around the net before spotting Riley.
“I was wide open,” said Riley, who had scored his first career goal a week ago after 86 games without one.
Maine had a 12-5 edge in the middle period despite having to kill four penalties including the five-on-threes that spanned 55 seconds and 42 seconds, respectively.
Each team had nine shots in the third period.
“We played well in the first two periods. Even with all the penalties in the second period, we still had a lot of shots. But we let them hang around,” said Riley. “It’s tough to tell what exactly happened in the third period. They came out with some energy in the third but we came back pretty hard. We just couldn’t hold the momentum. We have to play a full 60 minutes.”