NORTH ANDOVER, MA - The Merrimack hockey team was defeated on Friday night by the #8 Boston University Terriers by the score of 4-1 in front of a sold out crowd at Lawler Arena. The Warriors outshot the Terriers 38-24 in the defeat, which also marked their biggest home loss since last season against Boston University. Merrimack (7-9-4, 5-5-1 HEA) will play again tomorrow night as they will welcome the Maine Black Bears for a 7:00 p.m. start at Lawler Arena.
Kyle Bigos (Upland, Calif.) was the lone Warrior to score on Friday night as his slap shot from the point beat Sean Maguire. Bigos took a nice feed from John Gustafsson (Ljungby, Sweden) at the top of the left circle and fired it into the back of the net. Quinn Gould (Fort McMurray, AB) also picked up his first assist on the season on Bigos' third goal of the season.
The Terriers opened up the scoring on the night as their leading goal scorer, Wade Megan found the back of the net on the shorthanded opportunity. Megan skated through a couple of Warrior defenders and wristed the puck over the glove of Rasmus Tirronen (Espoo, Finland) from the top of the circles.
Boston University nearly extended their lead later in the period as they hit two posts on a power play opportunity. The Warriors survived the opening 20 minutes trailing 1-0 despite outshooting the Terriers 14-13.
The Terriers extended their lead to three in the second period as they found the back of the net on two even strength goals. Sahir Gill scored his fourth of the season after a great feed from Alexx Privitera gave him a wide open shot at the net. Just over 10 minutes later, Boston University made it 3-0 as Cason Hohmann beat Tirronen between the legs.
The Terriers capped their scoring at the 10:23 mark of the final period as Matt Nieto scored his fifth goal of the season with the assists going to Evan Rodrigues and Danny O'Regan.
The Warriors could not inch closer in the final frame as their best chance came when junior Brendan Ellis (Kelowna, BC) blasted one off the post. Merrimack finished the third period with 32 shot attempts but could only score one goal.
Leading scorer, Mike Collins (Boston, Mass.) was held without a point for the first time this season in a Hockey East contest. Collins is tied for the league lead with 16 points in 11 conference games. Merrimack finished the game going 0-3 on the power play despite recording eight shots on goal while the Terriers were held to 0-2 on their power play opportunities.
Tirronen finished off his night with 20 saves while his counterpart Maguire recorded 37 saves in his fifth win of the season.
The Warriors have now lost four straight games to the Terriers after winning two straight during the 2011 season.