What a game.
UMass Lowell has punched its ticket to the Men’s Hockey East finals with an epic 6-5 victory over Boston College in Wednesday’s semifinals round.
The Eagles entered the third period up 4-2, but the River Hawks made an incredible third-period push to send this game to overtime. Matt Brown hit the game-winner with eight minutes left in double-OT to complete one heck of a comeback for Lowell.
Anthony Baxter (twice), Reid Stefanson, Andre Lee and Lucas Condotta also scored for the River Hawks. Lee, Baxter and Chase Blackmun had two points apiece.
Marshall Warren, Mike Hardman, Alex Newhook and Marc McLaughin scored for BC. Newhook had five points (2 goals, 3 assists) while Matt Boldy had assists on four of BC’s five goals.
Here’s how it all went down.
EARLY EAGLES EDGE
BC wasted no time lighting the lamp.
The Eagles went on their first power play after six minutes of play, but Lowell drew its own penalty 35 seconds later to force a 4-on-4 situation.
That didn’t impact BC much, though, because a minute later, Warren found the back of the River Hawks’ net off a nifty dish from Matt Boldy to make give the Eagles a 1-0 lead.
Lowell failed to score on its second man-advantage of the period following a Patrick Giles tripping call midway through in the frame.
The River Hawks outshot the Eagles 11-6 while BC topped Lowell 11-9 in face-offs.
BC BOLSTERS LEAD
Lowell seemed to start the period on the right skate, but BC eventually got its groove back.
The River Hawks went on the power play early in the second after Shamburger was called for interference, which he wasn’t a fan of. But a solid Eagles kill kept Lowell at bay.
BC tacked on its second goal of the game a minute later on a 3-0 tic-tac-toe play finished by Hardman off yet another nice feed from Boldy.
Newhook was next to score after registering assists on both previous goals. His wrister blazed past Henry Welsch and gave the Eagles a 3-0 lead with 7:20 on the clock.
Lowell responded just 21 seconds later.
Baxter potted the team’s first goal of the game with a laser from the blue line.
The River Hawks got another chance to trim the Eagles’ lead after Michael Karrow went to the box for holding, but didn’t capitalize.
Instead, BC pushed its lead back to three with 1:13 left in the period on Newhook’s second goal (and fourth point) of the game.
Lowell still outshot BC 20-14.
PURE MAYHEM
This one got ugly. Fast.
The two teams started things off with roughly eight minutes (!) of continuous play, but Stefanson ended that with Lowell’s second goal of the game.
The River Hawks went to the man-advantage less than a minute later but couldn’t find the twine. Lee made up for that with 4:27 to play with Lowell’s third goal of the game.
But the River Hawks weren’t done there. Condotta nabbed Lowell’s second goal in just over a minute to tie the game at 4.
BC had a golden opportunity to take the lead back when Jon McDonald went to the box for slashing with 2:18 left. This time, it was McLaughin’s turn to score, making it 5-4 Eagles.
Lowell pulled its goalie with less than two minutes, allowing Baxter to knot things up at five with 1:26 to play.
By the way, that’s five goals in eight minutes.
So, off to overtime they went.
STALEMATE MODE
Neither team cooled off in the first period of extra time. They simply couldn’t find the back of the net.
Jack St. Ivany nearly won it for BC with less than seven minutes to go, but his goal was disallowed due after the play was deemed offside upon review.
Lowell outshot BC 43-33 through 80 minutes. But they weren’t done there.
LOWELL CALLS GAME
Wow.
After some more even play, the River Knights eventually finished things off.
Brown sealed the deal with eight minutes left in double-OT after batting the puck out of the air and into the net.
Now, Lowell is off the the Hockey East Final.
UP NEXT
Lowell will meet the winner of Wednesday night’s semifinals game between Providence and UMass on Saturday.
