LOWELL, Mass. - The No. 12 ranked UMass Lowell Hockey team earned a 2-2 tie against New Hampshire on Friday night at the Tsongas Center in front of 5,085 fans in Hockey East play.
The River Hawks are now 16-10-6 overall (10-7-5 HEA), while UNH is now 15-13-3 overall (9-10-2 HEA) with the tie.
"I think it was a tight game, it was a hard fought game, I think there was good goaltending on both sides," said UMass Lowell Head Coach Norm Bazin. "I liked our first, I liked our third, the second was tough. We ran into a few penalties, there wasn't as much momentum for us carried through. Hopefully we can carry the momentum we had in the third and the overtime. I thought in the overtime we had some looks and it didn't materialize."
Sophomore defenseman Jon McDonald (Livonia, Mich.) scored on a wrister from the high slot to tie the game at 2-2 with just 57 seconds to go in regulation on a 6x4 goal for his fourth tally of the year for the River Hawks.
Eric Esposito gave the Wildcats a 2-1 lead at 11:40 of the middle frame.
UNH's Filip Engaras tied the game for the Wildcats at 1-1 on a power play goal for his eight tally of the season with 30 seconds left in the opening stanza.
Sophomore forward Sam Knoblauch (Rochester, Mich.) opened the scoring in the game with 2:19 left in the first period as he banged home a rebound off a shot by Colin O'Neill (Odenton, Md.) from the high slot.
Senior goalie Tyler Wall (Leamington, Ont.) recorded 24 saves in the tie, which included 14 stops in the second period. UNH's Mike Robinson made 27 saves for UNH in the tie.
Senior Kenny Hausinger (Anchorage, Alaska) won a team-high 11 face-offs for the River Hawks in the contest, while freshman forward Matt Brown (Wood Ridge, N.J.) totaled a game-high six shots on net.
UMass Lowell returns to action on Saturday, February 29th at New Hampshire for the series finale. Game time from the Whittemore Center is 7 p.m. Game time from the Tsongas Center is 7:15 p.m. The game will be streamed nationally and internationally via CBS All-Access