It wasn’t an easy weekend by any means, but the UMass hockey team picked up two victories over LIU at the Mullins Center.
Saturday’s 3-1 victory capped the two-game sweep, as the 10th-ranked Minutemen received 28 saves from freshman goalie Luke Pavicich making his first career start.
Senior Garrett Wait scored twice, helping UMass improve to 15-8-2 on the season.
“Solid effort by the guys,” said UMass head coach Greg Carvel. “Watching LIU, I think they’re a really well-coached team. They play hard, and I think at the beginning our guys wanted it to be an easy sweep, but they had to earn it.”
UMass only outshot the Sharks (8-17-3), who are playing in just their second season as an NCAA Division 1 program, by a 30-29 margin. The Minutemen had a busy night on the penalty kill, though they managed to kill off all five shorthanded situations.
“The hard part was the amount of penalties they had to kill,” Carvel said. “We didn’t get a lot of momentum tonight because of that. It was a very even game, but our guys played very well defensively and I thought Luke Pavicich did a nice job in his first game.”
Wait put UMass ahead just 3 minutes, 48 seconds into the first period when he redirected a shot from Scott Morrow on the power play to make it 1-0.
Wait tallied his second of the night in the second period, putting home a one-timer with assists from Josh Lopina and Matthew Kessel.
LIU’s Max Balinson cut the deficit in half late in the second period, but Lucas Mercuri tacked on an insurance marker at 12:47 of the final period, deflecting a Matt Baker shot into the back of the net to make it 3-1.
“Sweeps aren’t easy and I’m very proud of the team, that’s three wins in a row now,” said Carvel. “We’ve got to get hot this time of year and hopefully build some momentum here going into next weekend’s play.”
UMass returns to Hockey East competition next weekend, when it welcomes Maine (4-16-4, 2-12-2 HE) to the Mullins Center for a two-game homestand Friday and Saturday nights. It’ll be Carvel’s first game against former UMass assistant Ben Barr, who is in his first year coaching the Black Bears.