ORONO, Maine — Senior center Wilmer Skoog scored with 9:01 left in the game to break a 3-3 tie as the third-ranked Boston University Terriers registered a 5-3 victory over the University of Maine on Friday night at Alfond Arena.

The Terriers’ Jeremy Wilmer sewed up the win with 1:32 remaining by snapping a wrist shot past the blocker of Victor Ostman after an extensive forechecking cycle by BU.

BU’s win was its 10th in its last 11 games. BU improved to 20-6 overall and 14-4 in Hockey East while UMaine fell to 11-13-2 and 5-9-1.

UMaine had just killed a penalty when Skoog got the puck from Jay O’Brien along the extended goal line to the left of Ostman.

Skoog fired a quick backhander that found the space over Ostman’s glove side shoulder for his 11th goal of the season.

“I saw Ryan O’Reilly do that same play a couple of weeks ago,” explained Skoog, referring to the St. Louis Blues forward. “I started practicing it without a goalie and I was pretty accurate with it. So I tried it out and it worked.”

UMaine had erased its third one-goal deficit 1:11 into the third period when Nolan Renwick flipped the puck out front from behind the net and it deflected into the net off a Terrier for his sixth of the year.

UMaine had a golden opportunity to take its first lead of the game when Didrik Henbrant passed from behind the net to a wide open Michael Mancinelli at the edge of the crease but goalie Drew Commesso robbed him with his glove.

Commesso finished with 25 saves and Ostman made 20.

Freshman left wing Devin Kaplan scored his eighth goal of the season 4:12 into the game and that was the score at the end of the period.

The Black Bears outshot BU 12-8 in the first period and carried the play but couldn’t solve Commesso.

UMaine’s resurgent power play capitalized twice in the second period to tie the game but the Terriers answered with goals moments after UMaine tied it to take a 3-2 lead into the third period.

Ben Poisson’s seventh goal knotted it up at 1-1 6:53 into the second period but Matt Brown scored his 12th just 1:50 later to restore the Terriers’s one-goal lead.

Lynden Breen notched his 12th to equalize with 4:10 left in the period but Ryan Greene’s seventh 2:18 later, a power play goal, put the Terriers ahead again.

Kaplan opened the scoring off a pass from Lane Hutson.

Skoog won a faceoff to Brown and he slipped it back to Hutson, who skated to his right across the high slot before making a backhand pass to the unattended Kaplan.

Kaplan took advantage of a screen in front and snapped a wrist shot past Ostman’s glove from the inner half of the left circle.

Poisson tied it when Cole Hanson took a pass from Grayson Arnott and took a wrist shot from the top of the right circle that deflected off Poisson and floated into the far corner.

Brown was fed nicely by Lane Hutson in the low slot and he broke free and swatted home his own rebound after Ostman made the initial save.

Breen’s goal also came off a rebound after Commesso made a stop on Donavan Houle’s redirection of a Thomas Freel wrist shot.

Breen tucked it between Commesso’s pads for UMaine’s seventh power play goal over its last 14 attempts.

But Greene scored from the middle of the low slot after being set up by Hutson and Jeremy Wilmer.

Dynamic freshman defenseman Hutson had four assists to give him 26 on the season to go with nine goals.

“The guys played hard. But every time the puck is on our tape in a game like that, you have to make a valuable play with and we didn’t do that tonight. I can’t fault the effort of the team but every time we broke down, the puck wound up in the back of our net,” said UMaine head coach Ben Barr.  “We have to play really, really precise hockey to win, especially against a team like that.”

BU entered the game as the nation’s second-highest scoring team, averaging 4.2 goals per game.

“Maine played very well,” said BU first-year coach Jay Pandolfo. “It’s a tough place to play. They gave us everything we could handle. Commesso played real well.”

UMaine will host Merrimack on Sunday at 2 p.m. while BU takes on Northeastern on Monday at 8 p.m. in their Beanpot Tournament semifinal at TD Garden in Boston.