ninth-longest game in NCAA Division I men’s hockey<\/a>, clocking in at four hours and 21 minutes — didn’t end without a bit of controversy.<\/p>\nThe game-winning goal came at 12:27 into the what the players tabbed the last period of the “second game,” when Lowell senior co-captain A.J. White got a pass from teammate Michael Fallon, which hit off of his skate and went past Friars netminder Nick Ellis.<\/p>\n
The goal went under a five-minute review to determine whether White used a distinct kicking motion to get it in.<\/p>\n
“From what I remember, Fallon picked up a pass on the half wall there, he made a really good pass to me, I was trying to corral the puck and it kind of hit my skate and bounced toward the net — it might have even hit their D-man before it went in,” said White. “On a long review, you’re always a bit nervous, but I was just hoping it went our way.”<\/p>\n
Providence coach Nate Leaman was unsure what to think of the call.<\/p>\n
“Both goalies were the stars of the night, it’s just a shame the way it ended,” Leaman said. “I don’t want to question the referees; he was pretty adamant about calling it off right from the start. It’s just a gray area in our game. It’s really gray. I think half the coaches in our league would watch that play and say that’d definitely a kicking motion, the other half would say no way.”<\/p>\n
It was a defensively driven game throughout for both teams. River Hawks goalie and Hockey East’s overall goaltending leader in GAA (1.62) and save percentage (.941) Kevin Boyle had 58 saves — the most ever by a Lowell goalie in the playoffs. Friars junior netminder Nick Ellis stopped 42 shots.<\/p>\n
The Friars (27-6-4) got on the board first at 6:38 in the opening period when Brian Pinho took the puck down the left slot with a slap shot that rebounded off Boyle’s pads and directly to Nick Saracino. Saracino chipped it over to freshman Vincent Desharnais, whose wrist shot soared through the sea of red-and-blue Lowell jerseys, eventually up and over Boyle’s left shoulder for his first goal of the season.<\/p>\n
With just over a minute left to go in the same stanza, the River Hawks (24-8-5) struck back to tie it up when sophomore C.J. Smith stick handled his way around a Friars defenseman and Ellis at the crease for his 17th goal of the season.<\/p>\n
After four scoreless periods of back-and-forth momentum from both clubs, the fatigue set in among players by the end of the second overtime.<\/p>\n
“We were just trying to stay hydrated,” said White. “And coach said if we stuck with the process, we would have a good outcome, so that was our mindset the whole time — staying positive and just sticking with what we knew and how we played.”<\/p>\n
After a quick turnaround for some much-needed recovery and rest, the River Hawks will play in the championship game Saturday against either Boston College or Northeastern.<\/p>\n
Lowell coach Norm Bazin put it simply: “We’re very excited to move on to the championship game. It was a good couple of games out there tonight.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BOSTON — After two scoreless overtimes, No. 8 UMass-Lowell put an end to the longest Hockey East semifinal game in history in the sixth stanza to beat defending national champions and No. 3 Providence 2-1 at the TD Garden Friday night. It’s the sixth time overall that the River Hawks have advanced to the Hockey […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[372],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22271"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22271"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22272,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22271\/revisions\/22272"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22271"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=22271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}