Game Statistics
Junior Brian Collins (Shrewsbury) and senior Jack Baker (South Boston) scored within a span of 26 seconds of the third period to highlight a 3-2 come-from-behind win for the host Terriers over the University of Massachusetts in Hockey East action on Sunday afternoon (December 9th).
The win completed a weekend sweep for the Terriers over the Minutemen. On Friday night, B.U. skated to a 5-2 win over UMass in Amherst.
With the victory, the Terriers improved to 10-3-1 overall and 5-2-1 in Hockey East action, while the Minutemen slipped to 6-10-0 overall and 2-7-0 in the league.
A partisan crowd of 2361 watched as UMass jumped to a 2-0 lead on first-period goals by Greg Mauldin (6:56 of the period) and Samuli Jalkanen (8:05), as the Minutemen were bidding to post their first win ever at Brown Arena. Dating back to the 1972-73 season, these two teams had met 15 times at the Terriers' rink and B.U. had won all 15 of those matchups.
"We just didn't come ready to play tonight," said Terrier head coach Jack Parker after the game. "They came ready, and that created a huge gap. In fact, we could have been down more.
"We played horrible in that period," the coach went on. "I really got on the boys between periods."
Parker's comments paid off in the second period, as the Terriers, who were outshot 8-5 in the first period, peppered UMass goalie Mike Johnson for 13 shots in the middle period. In the meantime, the Minutemen had 5 shots on Terrier sophomore goalie Sean Fields (Edmonton, ALTA).
One of the 13 shots resulted in a goal when senior Chris Dyment (Reading) scored his fifth goal of the year as his shot from the right point beat Johnson at 9:50 of the period. Freshman Ryan Whitney (Scituate) earned the assist.
The third period belonged to the Terriers as they scored the only two goals of the period.
Collins, who had just two goals in the team's first 13 games, tied the game at 5:49 of the period. He recovered a loose puck just at the top of the left faceoff circle in front of Johnson. Collins came in alone and slipped the puck past Johnson. The unassisted goal came at 5:49 of the period.
Baker came back just 26 seconds later, at 6:15, to score the game-winner.
"We had been working at getting the puck down low," said Baker."We got it where we wanted it and then got it back to the right point."
From there, Dyment took a slap shot that Baker deflected past Johnson for the game-winner. Junior John Sabo (Harding Township, NJ) also had an assist.
"We came into the locker room between the second and third periods," said Baker. "We said that we had a long break coming up and we wanted to give it our all in the third period."
It was a reversal from Friday night's game in which the Terriers did not play well in the third period but still came away with the 5-2 win.
"We played a great third period tonight," said Parker. "We had a lot of energy.
"I thought that the line of Sabo, Collins, and Baker played great," said Parker. Collins has been struggling scoring goals so far. I hope tonight's game will help him out of it. I also thought that (freshman) Bryan Miller (Wayne, NJ) played very well tonight.
"I just wish we had a better overall effort," concluded the coach. "But, it's better to come away with the W's rather than the L's."
