NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. -- Junior Mike Collins has been impressive for the Merrimack Warriors all season long and his stellar scoring output continued on Saturday as he posted a goal and an assist to lift the hosts to a 2-0 lead after one period over the Maine Black Bears.
Despite the comfortable lead after 20 minutes, MC is just 5-4-2 when it takes an advantage into the locker room for the first intermission. On the fiip side, Maine has two wins and five losses when trailing.
Each team took ten shots on goal, but Merrimack junior Sam Marotta - a Bridgewater, Mass. native - made stops on each of the chances he faced.
After a very fast-moving ten-plus minutes, the Warriors jumped ahead at 15:06 as Collins streaked through the offensive zone and followed up an assist from sophomore Dan Kolomatis with a rebound past Maine's Martin Ouellette.
With 47 seconds remaining, Collins made a beautiful tape-to-tape pass to sophomore Quinn Gould for the top-shelf wrister.
Joshua Kummins covers Hockey East for SB Nation. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKummins.