Merrimack and Maine Skate To 1-1 Draw At Alfond Arena; Kolomatis Nets Lone Goal
Sam Marotta interview , Dan Kolomatis interview
ORONO, ME – The Merrimack hockey team skated to a 1-1 draw on Friday night in the first of two games on the weekend against the Maine Black Bears. Sam Marotta (Bridgewater, Mass.) made a game-high 31 saves for the Warriors in the tie.
Merrimack (8-9-5, 6-5-2 HEA) will play again tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m. against the Maine Black Bears at Alfond Arena.
With the tie, Merrimack now trails Providence by two points for fourth place in the Hockey East standings with one game-in-hand on the Friars.
The Warriors opened up the scoring in the second period on the power play as Shawn Bates (Ft. Saskatechewan, AB) took a hit and made a drop pass to a streaking Dan Kolomatis (Basking Ridge, NJ) who buried the puck just over the glove of Martin Ouellette. John Gustafsson (Ljungby, Sweden) also picked up an assist on Kolomatis' third goal of the season.
The first period started out slow as Bates had the best chance of the period just under five minutes into the action as he stole the puck from a Maine defender and walked in on a partial breakaway but just missed the left corner of the net.
Marotta stood tall in the first period making eight first-period saves including two saves on the same 2-on-1 rush by Joey Diamond and Jason Beattie and then made an additional 13 saves in the second period.
The Black Bears finally got on the board in the third period with 10:01 to play in the game as Beattie brought the puck into the Merrimack zone and threw the puck towards Marotta, deflecting off a Warrior defender into the net. Beattie's power-play goal was unassisted.
The Warriors had their first chance to score in the overtime period as Joey Diamond took hitting from behind call just over a minute into the period. The Warriors, however, were unable to score on their only power play in overtime, recording only one shot on goal.
Maine received a power-play opportunity with 45 seconds to play in the game but Marotta made a nice save on their only chance, preserving the tie and improving to 5-4-3 on the year in net.
Junior Brendan Ellis (Kelowna, BC) finished with a game-high five shots on goal while four other Warriors recorded three shots on goal.
Merrimack finished the game going 1-4 on the power play and recording eight shots while the Black Bears finished 1-4 with six shots on goal.
Ouellette finished the game with 25 saves for the home team in the tie.
