The University of Maine men’s hockey team squandered a pair of three-goal leads and had to settle for a 4-4 tie on Friday night against Quinnipiac in Hamden, Connecticut.
Late third-period goals 46 seconds apart by Quinnipiac’s Elliott Groenewold and Jeremy Wilmer, both with the goalie pulled in favor of the extra attacker, earned the tie for Quinnipiac.
UMaine goalie Albin Boija stopped a breakaway with two seconds left in overtime to preserve a tie for the Black Bears.
Boija finished with 35 saves while Matej Marinov wound up with 18 stops for Quinnipiac.
Following the overtime, Quinnipiac won the shootout 1-0 but the game remains a tie in the eyes of the NCAA.
Seventh-ranked UMaine is now 2-0-1 while No. 10 Quinnipiac is 2-1-1.
The teams will conclude the series on Saturday at 4 p.m.
Groenewold cut the lead to 4-3 when he fired home the rebound of a Charlie Leddy shot with 2:16 left. It was his first goal of the season.
Wilmer tied it with a one-timer from the right circle off a William Gilson pass for his second goal of the campaign.
Owen Fowler and Miguel Marques scored 58 seconds apart late in the first period to extend UMaine’s lead to 3-0 after Will Gerrior had opened the scoring just 2:09 into the game.
It was the first goal of the season for each of them.
Ethan Wyttenbach netted a power play goal just 14 seconds into the second period but Thomas Freel answered on a breakaway 8:11 later.
Markus Vidicek pulled the Bobcats within two midway through the second period.
Gerrior opened the scoring off a Bobcat turnover.
He pounced on a loose puck at the Quinnipiac blue line, broke in alone on Marionov and skated left to right across the top of the crease before tucking a backhander between the goalie’s left skate and the left post.
Fowler extended the lead at the 17:51 mark when Thomas Pichette fed him a nice cross-ice pass from the right circle and Fowler snapped a quick wrist shot past the glove of Marinov.
Three freshmen teamed up on the next goal as Jaden Lipinski slid the puck to Justin Poirier on the inner half of the right faceoff circle and Poirier got off a one-timer that was kicked out by the right pad of Marinov.
But the rebound spilled out to Marques who chipped it into the upper short side corner.
Wyttenbach notched his third goal of the season to open the second period off a short pass from Antonin Verreault. Wyttenbach’s one-timer from the low slot beat Boija.
Freel restored the three-goal lead with his second of the season as he was went in alone by freshman defenseman Lukas Peterson and beat Marinov high to the glove side.
Vidicek answered when he was set up in the low slot by Anton Cerbone, who stole the puck from UMaine freshman defenseman Jeremy Langlois and fed the puck across to him.
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