Maine stays alive          By Larry Mahoney
          Saturday, March 08, 2008 - Bangor Daily News
          
          ORONO,
Maine - The University of Maine men's hockey team stayed alive in its
quest to pass UMass for the eighth and final Hockey East Tournament
spot Friday night.
The Black Bears spotted UMass Lowell the game-opening goal before rallying for a 4-1 victory at Alfond Arena.
After
Kory Falite started the scoring for the River Hawks 6:36 into the game,
Bret Tyler equalized on the power play with just 52 seconds remaining
in the period.
Maine’s
Jeff Marshall snapped a six-game pointless drought by breaking the tie
at the 15:42 mark of the second period and Chris Hahn added an
important insurance goal with 6:59 left in the third.
Rob Bellamy iced it with an empty-net goal 25 seconds from the final whistle. 
Maine’s fourth win in its last five games improved its record to 12-18-3 overall, 8-15-3 in Hockey East.
The River Hawks fell to 15-14-4 and 10-12-4 in Hockey East.
Maine extended its unbeaten streak at Alfond Arena against the River Hawks to 14 (13-0-1) dating back to 2001.
Maine
stayed two points behind UMass, which beat Merrimack. Maine hosts UML
for a Seniors Night game tonight at 7 and UMass visits Merrimack. 
Marshall’s game-winning goal came off a rebound of a Simon Danis-Pepin shot from the right point.
Danis-Pepin had just come off the bench was able to skate onto a loose puck and flip it toward the net.
Hutton
made a pad save on the awkward bouncer but the rebound squirted across
the top of the crease and Marshall tucked it into the short side corner
before Hutton could scramble across.
Maine
goalie Ben Bishop, who had a .944 save percentage over his last six
gams, made some important saves in the third period as the River Hawks
pressed for the equalizer.
Hahn
scored off a scramble following a face-off to Hutton’s right as he
batted the puck toward the goal and it just trickled over the line
before Hutton could pull it out of the net.
Falite
opened the scoring with his team-high 16th goal as Jeremy Dehner took a
pass from Paul Worthington, closed from the midpoint and fired a wrist
shot through a maze of players that Bishop kicked out to his left.
But the unattended Falite swept it into the empty net past the helpless Bishop.
Tyler tied it when his right shot from the point deflected off a pair of River Hawks and bounded into the net.
Bishop finished with 25 saves while Hutton made 20 stops.