ORONO, Maine — A veteran Providence College Friar team showed why they are the defending national champs and the nation’s No. 6-ranked team on Saturday night.
After withstanding a first-period surge by the University of Maine Black Bears, the Friars used Brian Pinho’s second-period goal to break a 2-2 tie and a valuable insurance goal by Trevor Mingoia in the third period to subdue the gritty Black Bears 4-2 at Alfond Arena.
Providence is now 19-5-4 overall, 10-3-3 in Hockey East, while Maine fell to 7-17-6 and 4-10-2. Providence has now gone 11-0-1 in the last 12 meetings with Maine.
“We struggled in the first period. Maine moved their feet better. We were fortunate to get out of the period tied [2-2],” said PC coach Nate Leaman. “We moved our feet better in the second period and didn’t have the bad turnovers we had in the first period. That enabled us to get some offensive zone play going. After going up 4-2 in the third period, we shut [Maine] down pretty well.”
The Friars had a pair of one-goal leads in the first period on goals by Erik Foley (power play) and Kevin Rooney but Eric Schurhamer and Brendan Robbins cancelled them out.
Pinho broke a 2-2 tie by scoring the only goal of the second period at the 5:11 mark.
Nick Saracino chased down a loose puck in the corner to the left of goalie Matt Morris and made a terrific cross-ice pass to the left circle where Pinho one-timed the puck past Morris.
“I got open and I knew he would find me. I was able to bury it short side. It was a good pass,” said Pinho.
The Friars carried the play in the middle period but Morris came up with a number of important saves and his teammates were able to clear a handful of loose pucks out of danger.
Maine’s Andrew Tegeler had a chance to tie it on a breakaway later in the middle period but Nick Ellis made a clutch save.
“I thought he was going to go blocker side but he tried to lift it over my glove and, luckily, my glove was there,” said Ellis.
Mingoia expanded the lead 4:04 into the third period after Morris robbed Mark Jankowski, who was open in the low slot. The puck pinballed around and Mingoia swatted it out of the air past Morris.
“We had two unbelievable looks, one by Jankowski and another by Foley, and Morris came up big on both. The puck popped in the air and Trevor knocked it in,” said Leaman.
Foley opened the scoring with a rising wrist shot from the left circle over Morris’ glove off a Tom Parisi pass.
Schurhamer answered 6:16 later when he made a nice move at the point and sent a backhander through a posse of legs that snuck past Ellis.
Rooney made it 2-1 at the 16:17 mark as he got behind a Maine defenseman and angled his stick to direct a precise pass from Steve McParland into the far corner.
Robbins tied it just 42 seconds later when Dan Renouf’s wrister from the left point deflected off two players to Robbins, who stuffed a backhander past Ellis from point-blank range.
Ellis finished with 32 saves, including two off breakaways, and Morris wound up with 34 in a solid performance.
“The guys played their tails off but their energy waned in the second period,” said Maine coach Red Gendron, who called a timeout late in the period. “I can’t fault our effort or physicality. It was a big-time street fight this weekend.”