One of Those Nights: UMass-Lowell 3, BC 2

It wasn’t the outcome Boston College wanted, but it felt from early on like it was happening.

In Lowell, MA on Friday night, the Eagles lost to UMass-Lowell in a Hockey East contest, 3-2. The win is the River Hawks’ fifth in a row, while #3 BC will end the first half of their season at 12-6 overall.

In the first period, Bill Arnold of Boston College had a scary moment when, at 3:48, Terrence Wallin of the River Hawks dealt a blow to Arnold’s head, causing him to hit the ice. Wallin got a five-minute major and a game misconduct, ending his night a few minutes after it began. Arnold was fine, but the Eagles were not, as BC’s extended power play turned into a four-on-four less than a minute later on a Paul Carey trip. With the teams skating four a side, UMass-Lowell got on the board 15 seconds afterward thanks to a David Vallorani goal (Ruhwedel and Furlong assisted).

Later in the period, UML went on the power play and hit BC again. This time, the goal was scored by Derek Arnold at 12:07 (Ferreira and Vallorani assisted). Boston College went into their first intermission down 2-0 and having played a sloppy frame where they could not capitalize on the early break they got with the major penalty and actually came out on the losing end of it.

The second looked better for the Eagles. Only one goal was scored, and it was by Boston College’s Barry Almeida at 1:40 (Whitney and Mullane assisted) on the power play. Regarding that, from BC Athletics:

"Career high reached for the senior Almeida with 10 goals in 18 games. He has six the last five games. #BCHockey"

The third period did not see Boston College complete the comeback, however. At 8:04, UML’s Joseph Pendenza broke away and got the insurance goal the River Hawks needed (Buco assisted), putting them ahead 3-1.

The Eagles did not go away quietly, as Bill Arnold notched his 11th goal of the season with 47 seconds to go in the game when BC had an extra attacker (Kreider and Cross assisted). Unfortunately for the Eagles, that was all they’d get, and the final score was 3-2 in favor of UML.

Brian Billett allowed three goals for his first loss as an Eagle, though with how BC played for stretches of this game, it didn’t seem like it would be their night, anyway.

12-6 isn’t a bad first half by any stretch, and any number of teams, including BC basketball, would kill them for that kind of a record. With any luck, this team will finish strong as is their recent modus operandi.

No need to complain about the outcome really; just shake it off and move on. Hopefully, you have alternative arrangements for the next three weeks, because that’s the next time the Eagles will hit the ice.