Huskies Face Nationally-Ranked UMass Boston on Friday

            GORHAM, Maine -- Senior Colby Drost (Franklin Lakes, N.J.) stopped 25 shots to earn his third shutout of the season as the University of New England defeated the University of Southern Maine, 1-0, Tuesday night in an ECAC Men's East game at the USM Ice Arena.

            The win was the second straight for the Nor'easters who improved to 8-11-1 overall and 6-7-1 in league play.  The win also gave the Nor'easters a sweep of the teams' regular-season series for the first time in the history of the series.  The Huskies fell to 5-15-0 overall and 2-11-0 in the league.  The game was originally scheduled for last Friday (January 30), but was postponed by bad weather.

            Drost was sharp in the first period when the Huskies out shot the visitors 12-7, and the final moments after USM pulled rookie goalie Kyle Shapiro (Ocean, N.J.) with 1:51 to play for the extra attacker.  Drost stopped an excellent scoring bid from 20 feet out through a screen by senior Stephen Gallo (Barnstead, N.H.) with less than 20 seconds to play to preserve the shutout.

            Rookie Christian Rossetti (Marblehead, Mass.) accounted for the only goal of the game in the latter stages of the second period.  Rossetti picked up a USM turnover at the blue line, skated in on Shapiro and beat the rookie goaltender for his third goal of the season at 15:51.  That proved to be the only scoring in the game as both goalies played well.

            Shapiro finished the game with 23 saves.  Southern Maine had a slim, 25-24 edge in shots on goal.  UNE had the game's three power plays, and was not whistled for a penalty.

            Southern Maine will play its final two regular season home games this weekend hosting nationally ranked UMass Boston on Friday (7:00 p.m.) and Babson College on Saturday (4:00 p.m.).  UNE will play Babson on Friday (7:00 p.m.) and UMass Boston on Saturday (4:00 p.m.).

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