LOWELl, Mass. – Senior Dillan Bentley (Peoria, Ill.) scored one goal with two assists, as the UMass Lowell ice hockey team (9-16-0, 5-10-0 Hockey East) dropped a hard-fought 6-5 overtime battle against Maine (14-9-2, 8-7-0 Hockey East) on Saturday night at the Tsongas Center.

Bentley led the team with three points, while sophomores Chris Delaney (Hopkinton, Mass.) and Lee Parks (Ottawa, Ontario) each had two points on one goal and one assist, and freshman Diego Buttazzoni had two points on two helpers. Junior Sean Kilcullen (Kensington, Md.) and sophomore Dominic Payne (North Vancouver, B.C.) joined the goal-scoring party as well, while graduate student Jay Ahearn (Staten Island, N.Y.), freshman Josh Mori (Richmond, B.C.) and junior Jak Vaarwerk (Clarence, N.Y.) tallied one assist apiece.

Defensively, Parks led the team with three blocked shots, while Vaarwerk and Buttazzoni each blocked two. Eight different skaters all had one blocked shot each, as well. Senior Samuel Richard (Sainte-Catherine, Quebec) got the nod between the pipes for the River Hawks, making 32 saves.  

"It was a strange game," said Head Coach Norm Bazin. "Not the way we wanted to come out. For whatever reason, we were flat in the first. I really liked the comeback effort and thought they executed a few changes we made and we scored the next five. That should be enough, but overall, I am proud of quite a few guys."

Despite Maine goals at 5:11 and 10:00, the River Hawks picked up steam towards the end of the period, killing off a Black Bears penalty and going on a power play of their own where they threatened the Maine goaltender and defensive unit, especially with a cross-ice pass from Buttazzoni to senior TJ Schweighardt (Manahawkin, N.J.) in front of the net, but it couldn't find the stick of Schweighardt, and the game went to first intermission with a 2-0 score.

The River Hawks turned the game around in the second, scoring three goals in just over three minutes in response to a Maine goal at 7:09. Delaney got the squad on the board at 10:48, collecting a blocked Mori shot after Bentley won the faceoff in the offensive zone. The next goal came off a Bentley faceoff win once again when Kilcullen snagged the puck in the high slot and sniped it to the top right corner to make it a one-goal game. Payne then knotted it up just over a minute later after Buttazzoni won the puck in the corner to find Parks in the faceoff circle before he sent one to Payne for the one-timer to send the game to the third with a tie score.

Parks gave the River Hawks their first lead of the game just 1:25 into the third period, ripping a shot from the right faceoff circle after Vaarwerk won the faceoff and Buttazzoni tipped it over to Parks. Bentley then tallied his third point of the game with his goal at the 9:32 mark, taking an Ahearn pass from the blue line after Delaney brought the puck into the zone and turning and shooting for his 11^th of the year. Maine retaliated 20 seconds later to make it 5-4, before tying it up with 7:16 remaining in regulation to send it to overtime at 5-5. Maine scored 3:14 into the overtime period to conclude the game at 6-5.

The River Hawks took one point in the Hockey East standings with the effort and move on to host Massachusetts next Sunday, February 1 at 3:30 p.m.