Men’s hockey appeared to have seized the momentum in the Hockey East semifinal against the UMass–Lowell Riverhawks.

Junior Jonathan Turk, who scored the overtime winner in Game 3 of the series with the University of Maine, centered a pass for first-year Kevin Irwin who redirected it in for the first goal of the game.

Less than a minute later, junior Alexx Privitera took a hooking penalty. On the opening face-off of the UMass-Lowell power-play, sophomore Brendan Bradley took the same penalty.

Vermont was forced to kill off 5-on-3 Riverhawk man advantage  for almost two full minutes.

Shortly after the puck dropped on the five on three, Riverhawk defenseman Michael Kapla took a quick shot that beat junior net minder Brody Hoffman.

Vermont had the lead for 32 seconds, however they would not score again.

The play was quite even for the rest of the first, but in the second period the ice tilted towards the Riverhawks.

With three minutes and fifty seconds left in the second, UMass–Lowell finally potted the go-ahead goal after outshooting the Catamounts for the period 12-8. Michael Louria beat Hoffman glove side, a goal that Head Coach Kevin Sneddon referred to in the post-game press conference as “one he usually has.”

The third period saw the Riverhawks go up by two goals about midway through the period as Terrence Wallin hammered in a rebound past Hoffman. UMass–Lowell then scored the empty netter with 1:24 left.

“They just executed their game plan better than we did,” Sneddon said. “There aren’t a lot of words you can say as a coach that can take the pain away, but I thought our team gave the program everything they could, every game, every day of the year. I’m real proud of our guys.”

This was the last game in a UVM sweater for seniors Nick Luukko, Colin Markison, Kyle Reynolds, Jake Fallon, and captain Mike Paliotta.

Vermont will not make the NCAA tournament as it needed to win the Hockey East Championship in order to move back up in the rankings.