By ANDREW SMITH

LOWELL - A goal by Matt Irwin with 67 seconds left in Saturday night's game gave the University of Massachusetts hockey team a weekend sweep of the series with UMass-Lowell.

Irwin gave the Minutemen a 2-1 victory at Tsongas Arena.

Coming into the weekend, UMass coach Don "Toot" Cahoon said the 15th-ranked River Hawks might be the best team in Hockey East. Still, the No. 19 Minutemen (14-80, 9-6 Hockey East) came away with two crucial victories and four points in the standings.

The win Saturday lifted UMass into third place in the conference with 18 points, one more than Maine, which lost 3-2 at Providence. The Minutemen are three points behind New Hampshire and two behind Boston College.

With 1:54 left in Saturday's game, Riley Wetmore of Lowell was called for a hooking penalty, giving the Minutemen 58 seconds of a five-on-three power play. Irwin took advantage when he launched a slap shot from just inside his blue line which ricocheted off the crossbar and bounced backwards into the net.

"We just wanted to get the puck moving and get their guys turned around," said Irwin. "We went D-to-D and James (Marcou) tossed it back to me and I just tried to shoot it as hard as I can and get it on net."

Marc Concannon got his first goal of the season for UMass at 5:28 of the first period after skating on a breakaway with Rocco Carzo. He drew a defenseman and fed a pass to Concannon who sent a wrist shot past River Hawks goaltender Carter Hutton (15 saves), giving the Minutemen a 1-0 lead.

Lowell (12-9-2, 6-6-2 Hockey East) tied the game with 12 minutes played in the second period when David Vallorani fired a centering pass from behind the UMass goal toward Patrick Cey. He quickly slapped the puck past Minuteman goalie Paul Dainton (28 saves) for his first goal of the season.

UMass spent much of the first two periods killing off 22 penalty minutes. Because they spent so much time on defense, the Minutemen had only eight shots on goal, compared to the 24 shots the River Hawks sent at Dainton.

"After the second game in two nights, legs start to get a little fatigued, but it's a 1-1 game going into the third period," said Irwin. "It's a 20-minute game. You can suck it up for 20 minutes and know you have the next week off."

UMass also was without its leading goal scorer Casey Wellman after he received a two-minute penalty and a 10-minute game misconduct for shooting the puck at Hutton after a whistle in the second period.

"I thought we weathered some storms in the second period," Cahoon said. "I thought a big point in the game was to get through the second period and make it a 20-minute game."

Lowell appeared to take a 1-0 lead just 2:11 into the first period when Chris Auger took a cross-ice pass from Jeremy Dehner and sent a slap shot from the left faceoff circle passed through Dainton's pads. However, after the referees reviewed the play, the goal was disallowed because a River Hawk was in the crease in front of Dainton.

"That gave us a little bit of life." Cahoon said. ... "The referee said he saw it the whole way, but I said, #You have to at least check,' so that was a big break for us."

The Minutemen got a scare 1:40 into the second period when Hobey Baker Award nominee James Marcou, who leads the country in points and assists, was down on the ice after taking a hit to the head by Maury Edwards. Marcou remained down for several minutes before skating back to the bench without assistance. He returned to the ice seconds later, and assisted on Irwin's game-winning goal.

UMass is off for a week before hosting Vermont at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Mullins Center. The teams conclude the weekend series at 3 p.m. Sunday, also at the Mullins Center.