ORONO — The University of Maine men’s hockey team’s seven-game winning streak came to an end on Saturday night, but it ran its unbeaten streak to eight games.
The Black Bears erased a 3-0 deficit and received a goal from freshman left wing Sully Scholle with just 2:25 remaining to earn a 4-4 tie with Colgate University from the ECAC.
The teams played a scoreless five-minute 3-on-3 overtime with a potential game-winning goal by Colgate junior right wing Brett Chorske waved off due to goaltender interference.
Maine went on to win the shootout 2–0 on goals by brothers Josh and Bradly Nadeau. Freshman goalie Albin Boija stopped both Colgate shots.
The game will go into the books as a tie, and UMaine is now 13-3-2 while Colgate is 6-9-3.
Scholle got the equalizer after a Colgate-clearing attempt bounced over to him in the high slot.
He made a nifty move to move around a Raider and then snapped a 20-foot wrister into the far corner past the blocker of Colgate goalie Carter Gylander.
Chorske’s second goal of the game broke a 3-3 tie early in the third period.
Simon Labelle slid a nice pass over to Chorske, breaking down the right wing, and he snapped a 20-foot wrist shot into the short side corner the glove of Boija, who had replaced Victor Ostman in the first period after Ostman allowed three goals on six shots.
UMaine sophomore left wing Thomas Freel scored goals just 19 seconds apart in the final 37 seconds of the second period to tie it up at 3-3. The second goal was shorthanded.
The Raiders had stunned the Black Bears by jumping out to a 3-0 lead.
Chorske opened the scoring just 59 seconds into the game with a short side wrister off a Ryan McGuire feed. Junior center McGuire made it 2-0 at the 9:41 by beating Ostman to the short side from a near impossible angle off a Chorske rebound, and sophomore center Daniel Panetta scored on the power play 1:40 later with a wrister past Ostman’s blocker from the low slot off a Labelle pass.
Senior right wing Donavan Houle got one back for the Black Bears just 23 seconds after Panetta’s goal with a one-timer from the right faceoff dot off a Harrison Scott pass.
But the Raiders smothered the Black Bears for the first 19 minutes of the second period, limiting them to few scoring chances and just two shots on goal for the first 12 minutes.
They had chances to extend the lead only to have Boija come up with some important saves.
Freel scored his first goal off a pass from Bradly Nadeau.
Nadeau had a one-timer from the left faceoff circle that was stopped nicely by Gylander. But the puck came back to Nadeau, and he passed it across to the right circle where Freel one-timed it past Gylander.
Just seconds later, Freel blocked a pass at the left point and was able to get around a Colgate defenseman and hold him off to break in alone on Gylander.
He pulled it across the crease on his forehand and then slid it to his backhand and reached around Gylander to tap it in.
Boija finished with 23 saves on 24 shots, and Gylander wound up with 41 stops.
UMaine concluded its non-conference play with an 8-1-1 mark.
UMaine will travel to Hartford for Hockey East games against UConn on Friday at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 3 p.m.
Colgate will visit Long Island University for games at 7:30 p.m. and 2 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.
