University of Maine center Tim Doherty, the team’s second-leading scorer this season, will play his final season at Penn State University according to a report in the institution’s Daily Collegian.
Doherty is a senior academically and will graduate in the spring but has a year of eligibility remaining.
Since he will be a graduate student, he is able to transfer without having to sit out a season as required under NCAA guidelines for undergraduate transfers.
Doherty recorded 37 points on 14 goals and 23 assists in 34 games this season. He registered 10 multiple-point games and figured in eight of UMaine’s 18 game-winning goals with three goals and five assists.
His pass to linemate Mitch Fossier resulted in Fossier’s game-winner in the season-ending 1-0 victory over Providence College on March 7.
Doherty scored six power-play goals to tie for the team lead in that category and his 126 shots on goal were tops on the team.
He was second in plus-minus for the season at plus-14. Players receive a plus-one if they are on the ice when their team scores an even-strength or short-handed goal and a minus-one if the opponent scores while a player is on the ice.
Doherty’s 1.09 points per game tied for 24th in the country among the nation’s 60 Division I schools.
He helped lead UMaine to an 18-11-5 record and fourth-place finish in Hockey East after the team was picked to finish eighth in the Hockey East preseason coaches poll.
Doherty will join a Penn State team that won the Big Ten regular-season championship this season after playing in the league’s tournament championship game in 2019 and earning back-to-back NCAA Tournament berths the previous two seasons.
Penn State is graduating four of its top seven scorers off its 20-10-4 team.
Doherty, native of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, was also an exceptional penalty-killer and concluded his UMaine career with 34 goals and 43 assists in 101 games.
This story will be updated.