ORONO, Me. — Devin Shore’s two goals and two assists led Maine to a 6-4 win over New Hampshire at Alfond Arena on Friday night.
Maine took an initial lead before many in the crowd had settled into their seats.
Steven Swavely brought the crowd to its feet 42 seconds into the game, but the lead didn’t last long as UNH scored three straight goals to take a commanding 3-1 lead.
The first came less than a minute after Swavely’s goal courtesy of UNH’s Kyle Smith. Cameron Marks added a power-play goal and Wildcats’ captain Matt Willows collected his 10th of the season to give UNH the two-goal lead.
Maine’s Nolan Vesey joined in with a power-play goal of his own to cut the lead to 3-2 before the end of the first period.
“You hear about Maine-UNH, they are a fun team to play against,” Shore said. “The games are pretty wild to be a part of and you want to play as much as you can.”
“Not one team was going to come into the game not ready to play,” added Swavely. “After they scored three straight, we just kept it together on the bench and stayed positive and said, ‘If we get the second one, we’re going to take off from there.’ And that’s exactly what we did.”
Maine went to work in the second. Conor Riley and Shore put Maine out front and in position to run away with the game in the third.
Maine’s Cam Brown made a nice move to drop the pass back to Riley, who fired the one timer behind UNH goalie Danny Tirone, knotting the game 3-3.
Shore kicked off Maine’s three unanswered goal streak at 14:25 into the second period.
Traffic in front of the UNH goalkeeper had the Wildcats scrambling. Shore’s nifty stick work opened the opportunity for him to get the shot on net and the captain took advantage, sending the wrister in far corner above Tirone.
He continued to pepper away at Tirone, putting his second of the game just beyond the goalie’s reach to start the third.
UNH answered late into the third with a goal by Casey Thrush for his fourth of the season to pull the Wildcats to within one goal.
In a last-minute effort, UNH tried to complete the comeback by pulling Tirone for the extra attacker, but Swavely sent his second of the night into the empty net with 1:18 remaining to secure the win for the Black Bears.
“We didn’t do a great job in our own end,” New Hampshire coach Dick Umile said. “Devin, he’s a goalscorer. The kid finds it and puts it away.”
Sean Romeo made 33 saves for Maine and Tirone made 28 for UNH.
The teams will play again on Saturday night in Durham, N.H.
