NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. -- Senior goaltender Tyler Wall (Leamington, Ont.) stopped 24 shots in his 51st career win for the No. 13 ranked UMass Lowell Hockey team in the 3-1 road victory at Merrimack on Saturday afternoon in Hockey East play at Lawler Arena.

Wall, who is a candidate for the Mike Richter Award, tied Dwayne Roloson's Div. I school wins record with his 51st career victory. 

"I thought I was calm, the defense and forward did a good job of keeping shots to the outside," said Wall. "I think it's a huge honor to be in the same sentence as Roloson."

UMass Lowell improves to 11-4-4 overall (6-2-3 HEA), while Merrimack falls to 4-14-2 overall and 2-6-2 in Hockey East play. With the victory, the River Hawks move back into first place tie in the Hockey East standings with 15 points, along with Northeastern. UMass Lowell now owns a 6-1-1 mark on the road this season. 

"Overall, I didn't necessarily think we started the game the way we wanted, but that's the way it happens sometimes," said UMass Lowell Head Coach Norm Bazin. "We got rid of some rust in the first and Tyler Wall was big for us in the first period. We got better as the game went along and our penalty kill was excellent and we scored a power play goal at the end, so that was the difference."

Junior forward Connor Sodergren (Tewskbury, Mass.) tallied a power play goal midway through the third period for his sixth of the year. Sodergren finished the game with a team-high four shots on goal in the victory. Merrimack got on the scoreboard late in the third period on a goal by Griff Jeszka to close out the scoring in the game. 

Senior forward Kenny Hausinger (Anchorage, Alaska) got the River Hawks on the board first in the game for his sixth of the season just 3:41 into the second frame. Freshman forward Andre Lee (Karlstad, Sweden) scored his fifth career goal with a pretty wrist shot less than four minutes later to give the River Hawks a 2-0 lead. 

The teams skated to a scoreless opening frame with Merrimack owning a 11-8 shot advantage. 

UMass Lowell went 1-for-3 on the power play and was a perfect 5-for-5 on the penalty kill on the evening. 

Troy Kobryn recorded 21 saves in the losing effort in the Warriors net.

The River Hawks return to action on Friday, January 10th at RIT. Game time from the Polisseni Center is 7 p.m. 

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