AMHERST, Mass. – The No. 16/15 UMass Lowell ice hockey team (15-12-4, 8-10-3 Hockey East) battled to a 2-2 tie against No. 17/14 Massachusetts (17-12-4, 8-9-4 Hockey East) on Thursday evening at the Mullins Center in Amherst, Mass., falling just short in the shootout, 2-1.

Junior Dillan Bentley (Peoria, Ill.) and senior Stefan Owens (Midlothian, Va.) scored the two goals for the River Hawks, while senior Owen Cole (Dunnville, Ontario), sophomore Jak Vaarwerk (Clarence, N.Y.), freshman Mirko Buttazzoni (Langley, B.C.) and graduate student Jack Robilotti (New York, N.Y.) all tallied helpers.

10 total skaters had at least one blocked shots on the day for the River Hawks, with graduate student Pierson Brandon (Irvington, N.Y.) leading the way with two, while nine others had one apiece. Junior Beni Halasz (Budapest, Hungary) got the nod in net, making 29 saves.

"The fans were treated to a good college hockey game once again," said Head Coach Norm Bazin. "They are a good Hockey East opponent and overall, I thought we bent and we didn't break at times."

The River Hawks picked up a power play opportunity at 6:34, and senior Isac Jonsson (Ängelholm, Sweden) had a scoring chance in front of the net on a breakaway, but it was broken up before he could get a quality shot on net. However, the squad managed to open up the scoring just as the power play expired, when Bentley took a pass from Vaarwerk and finished it past UMass goaltender Michael Hrabal. Cole got the play started from the blue line, finding Vaarwerk in the faceoff circle. Just over three minutes later, Massachusetts tied it up with a goal, making it 1-1 with 9:31 left.

Later, with 1:26 on the clock, Massachusetts collected a power play chance of their own, and the River Hawks were able to keep them scoreless, while graduate student Ben Meehan (Walpole, Mass.) earned a solid scoring chance with under five seconds left, but it was just saved. Both teams went to the locker room with the score at 1-1.

The remaining 34 seconds on the Massachusetts power play was killed off by the River Hawks to begin the second period, and Vaarwerk tallied one of the first chances on a backhand in front of the net at 6:36 but it just found the blocker of Hrabal. Later on, freshman Libor Nemec (Bratislava, Slovakia) had a chance of his own with a nice shot after circling the net that was also saved. Eventually, the River Hawks cashed in at the 15:14 mark, as Robilotti got the puck on net after a pass from Buttazzoni, and Owens was able to get a stick on it to deflect it to the back of the net and give UMass Lowell the lead. The team then killed off a Massachusetts power play chance at the end of the period and they took the 2-1 lead to the second intermission.

The River Hawks battled throughout the first half of the third period, but it was the Minutemen that got to the scoreboard first at the 9:13 mark, tying the game at two. The clash continued for the remainder of the third, with both teams going back-and-forth until the horn sounded, and the game went to a 3-on-3 overtime period.

The River Hawks gained a lot of momentum in overtime, firing off five shots on goal compared to the Minutemen's two, and tallied a few near-goal moments, but both goaltenders kept each other's squads scoreless to send it to a shootout, which Massachusetts won 2-1 for the extra point in the conference standings.

The two teams will now conclude the two-game series on Saturday, March 1 at the Tsongas Center in Lowell, beginning at 6:05 p.m.