ESTERO, Fla. — The University of Miami RedHawks have gone 146-57-24 over the last five-plus seasons and have made five straight NCAA appearances.
Their combination of speed, skill and tenacity were simply too much for the lethargic University of Maine Black Bears on Wednesday night as the RedHawks notched a convincing 4-1 victory in the opening round of the Florida College Classic at Germain Arena.
Maine, now 8-5-4, will now face 4-7-1 Cornell University, a 4-3 overtime loser to St. Cloud State, in Thursday’s 4:05 p.m. consolation game while 11-5-3 Miami will take on the 6-11-2 Huskies in the championship game at 7:35.
Maine was the defending tournament champ and had won four of the previous 10 Florida College Classics.
The RedHawks, who lost to Boston University 4-3 in overtime in the NCAA title game two years ago and dropped a 7-1 decision to eventual national champion Boston College in the Frozen Four last year, used a Justin Vaive power-play goal late in the first period and Andy Miele’s breakaway in the second period to build a 2-0 lead while outshooting the Black Bears 27-10.
Miele made it 3-0 with another breakaway goal in the third period before Robby Dee’s power-play goal gave the Bears a glimmer of hope 4:28 later.
But Miami’s Alden Hirschfeld added a power-play goal with 4:08 remaining to sew it up.
“We were outplayed by Miami in every aspect except goaltending. Dan Sullivan played a great game,” said Maine coach Tim Whitehead. “Conditioning was an issue. We looked a step behind. So we’ll practice quite hard the next few weeks.”
He added that the line of Matt Mangene, converted defensemen Mike Banwell and Mike Cornell was their best line.
“They skated well, they defended well and they were physical,” said Whitehead.
Freshman goalie Sullivan kept the Black Bears in the game in the first period with 11 Grade-A (high-percentage) saves as Miami outshot Maine 17-4.
The RedHawks finished with a 34-15 edge in shots, marking the first time Maine has been outshot this season.
Senior left winger Vaive, son of former NHL sniper Rick Vaive (441 goals in 876 career games), provided the RedHawks with a richly deserved lead when he tipped defenseman Cameron Schilling’s point shot past Sullivan.
“They had a big guy screening me and the (deflection) went between my arm and my body on the blocker side. I tried to squeeze it but it trickled through,” said Sullivan.
It was Vaive’s fourth goal of the season.
Maine had a golden opportunity to equalize in the second period when it had a two-man advantage for 49 seconds, but the Bears failed to capitalize for the 10th time on 12 five-on-threes this season and Miele was eventually able to extend the lead.
The Black Bears tried to keep the puck in the offensive zone but weren’t able to do so and Miele wound up busting around a defenseman and going in alone on Sullivan.
Miele put a move on Sullivan, pulled the puck to his backhand and roofed it over Sullivan’s glove for his ninth goal of the season.
“He made a nice move but I couldn’t believe it went in. I thought I had it or it went over the net,” said Sullivan. “He didn’t have much to shoot at.”
Miele scored again 3:22 into the third period, this time faking the backhand and flipping a wrister past Sullivan.
“I thought he might do the same thing he did on the previous one but he made a good move,” said Sullivan.
“Miele is a special player. Those would have been goals in any league,” said Whitehead.
Dee cut the lead when he took a pass from junior defenseman Will O’Neill, who was playing his first game since Nov. 6 due to a knee injury, split the defense and fired the puck past Cody Reichard for his seventh of the season.
But Maine couldn’t get any closer and Hirschfeld added his eighth goal.
“For whatever reason, we didn’t come out very strong and we couldn’t get back the momentum,” said Maine senior center and captain Tanner House. “They did a good job. They came ready to play right from the start. They worked harder than we did and deserved to win. We didn’t match their intensity and lost a lot of battles (for the puck). It was a tough lesson to learn.”
House added that the “only positive was Sullivan. He played a real good game. We could have been down four or five in the first period. That’s how poorly we came out and how strong they came out.”
Miami went 2-for-4 on the power play while Maine went 1-for-6.
Reilly Smith had two assists for Miami, which claimed its first win over Maine in six meetings. Hirschfeld had an assist to go with his goal.
Whitehead said there will be plenty of lineup changes for the Cornell game and freshman Martin Ouellette will start in goal.