LOWELL, Mass. -- The No. 4 seeded UMass Lowell Hockey team was defeated by No. 5 seed Boston University, 3-0 in the opening game of the Hockey East quarterfinals on Friday night at the Tsongas Center.

The River Hawks fall to 18-12-5 overall with the loss, while the Terriers improve to 15-16-4 after the victory.

"We were hoping to come in here and set the tone in the first 10 minutes, and that's not what happened," said UMass Lowell Head Coach Norm Bazin. "I wasn't pleased with the first period. We came out even after the first period, so that was a real positive for us. Second I thought we got a lot better, we had some real good looks around the net front."

Patrick Curry's empty netter sealed the win for the Terriers with 25 seconds to go in the third period for his 12th goal of the season.

BU's Joel Farabee opened the scoring in the game with his 14th of the season just 6:24 into the second period. Farrabee finished the game with two points (1g,1a) and seven shots on goal. Cam Crotty added a power play goal for the Terriers with 1:34 left in the middle stanza for his fourth tally of the season to make it a 2-0 game.

The teams skated to a scoreless first period with BU owning a 8-7 shot advantage, but UMass Lowell had the edge in the middle frame at 14-9 against the Terriers.

Senior goalie Christoffer Hernberg (Espoo, Finland) totaled 24 saves in his 15th start of the season in the loss for the River Hawks. BU's Jake Oettinger totaled 25 saves in his fourth shutout of the season for the Terriers, which was the 13th of his career. 

Sophomore forward Chris Schutz (Keller, Texas) had a game-high seven shots on goal for UMass Lowell, while senior forward Ryan Dmowski (East Lyme, Conn.) added six shots on goal. Senior forward Nick Master (Broomall, Pa.) won 12-of-16 (75%) face-offs for the River Hawks. 

UMass Lowell returns to action for Game 2 in the series on Saturday, March 16th. Game time from the Tsongas Center is 7 p.m.