River Hawks Fly Past Huskies

In a rematch of last season’s Hockey East semifinal, Mass.-Lowell upended Northeastern, 3-1.

It was a hard fought game throughout with many power plays for both teams. UMass-Lowell, however, converted on two of their chances while Northeastern only had one goal on the man advantage.

For the River Hawks, netminder Carter Hutton was outstanding, only allowing one goal on 25 shots.

“I thought our goalie played really, really well and gave us a chance to win the game,” said UMass-Lowell coach Blaise MacDonald.

It was a penalty infested first period, where both teams had chances on the power play, but couldn’t capitalize. Early on, Northeastern had more scoring chances, but Hutton stood tall, making some key saves.

“The first period was really kind of a sparring match, there wasn’t a lot of real quality chances in front of either net,” said Northeastern head coach Greg Cronin.

Early in the second, UMass-Lowell broke through with a goal by Riley Wetmore – the first of his career – at 4:47 to take the 1-0 lead.

After sustained pressure from the River Hawks, Wetmore tipped a Ryan Blair shot that eluded Northeastern goaltender Chris Rawlings (30 saves).

“Ryan Blair had a shot on net and it was fortunate enough to hit me and went into the net,” he said.

In the middle of the period Northeastern put together some good opportunities, but again Hutton was there to make the saves.

The third period went back and forth with both teams having excellent chances.
Northeastern’s best scoring chance came when the Huskies were on the power play.

Huskies forward Garrett Vermeersch got the puck deep from his own end and sent a pass to Tyler McNeely who raced down the left side of the ice and shot the puck from the faceoff circle. McNeely’s shot beat River Hawks goaltender Carter Hutton (24 saves) on the short side at 8:03.

Northeastern pulled the goaltender late in the third period and Paul Worthington scored an empty netter to secure the win at 19:16.

Cronin summarized his team’s performance saying: “We had the chances, we just couldn’t seem to bury them. I thought their goalie was terrific, he had some huge saves.”

“It was a hard fought game for us,” said MacDonald. “I think Northeastern played really well. They played a really tough road game. Our special teams were pretty good tonight. We got a key power play goal and had some key [penalty] kills. I thought Northeastern had a real good game against us.”

The River Hawks will be back in action next weekend with a home-and-home series against the Boston University Terriers. The next action for Northeastern is not until Friday Nov. 6 when they also face off against BU.