NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. — It was a battle of nationally-ranked teams as No. 18 Merrimack played host to No. 3 Boston University Friday night at Lawler Rink in the first game of a home-and-home series between the two.
The two teams skate to a 1-1 tie, but it wasn’t for lack of action.
“It was a great enviornment with two good teams,” said Warriors’ coach Mark Dennehy. “You have a lead in the third and you don’t like to give that up, but I thought we played pretty well.”
The first period saw a fast-paced game with both squads going up and down the sheet. Within the first five minutes of the game, Merrimack was shorthanded twice, but the penalty kill was a strength for Merrimack.
With 14 minutes left in the opening frame, Merrimack goaltender Colin Delia made a huge pad stop on Evan Rodrigues to keep it a scoreless game.
The second frame saw the Warriors score first on a Brett Seney goal just 1:07 into the period on a shot that went high glove on Matt O’Connor to give the Warriors a 1-0 lead.
About halfway into the period, Cason Hohmann had a partial breakaway, but was robbed by the glove of Delia. Four minutes later, Jace Henning had a chance to put Merrimack up by one, but just missed the net. Late in the period with 2:08 remaining, O’Connor made a huge glove save to end the period with a 1-0 score in favor of Merrimack.
The third period also saw a goal come in the first minute when Matt Lane went hard to the net to jam the puck past Delia to tie the game at 1-1.
With 10 minutes remaining, Brian Christie had a huge chance for Merrimack (10-4-2), but O’Connor made a huge stop to keep the game tied.
The overtime period saw both teams trying to create chances for themselves, but couldn’t find the back of the net.
Delia made 21 saves, while O’Connor finished with 26 as BU moves to 9-3-2.
“It was a hard game,” Terriers’ coach David Quinn said. “They’re a good team and they’re well-coached. We just don’t look as sharp as we did earlier in the year.”
