Freshmen Lead Maine in Weekend Sweep Of Massachusetts

Orono, Maine -- First year head coach Red Gendron is still undefeated at Alfond Arena as the bench boss of the Black Bears following his team's weekend sweep of the University of Massachusetts.

Maine needed overtime to defeat the Minutemen on Friday night. Sophomore Devin Shore assisted on two goals, including Connor Leen's game winner in overtime.

Saturday night's contest was much more lopsided with the Black Bears jumping out to a 7-2 lead en route to an 8-4 victory over John Micheletto's squad. Maine scored six goals in the second period, including the first four of the stanza by rookies. Josh Henke, Brian Morgan and Cam Brown all scored their first collegiate goals and fellow rookie Blaine Byron tallied his second of the season.

Byron and Brown each scored a goal and added three assists on the game while senior Mark Anthoine added two goals and two helpers to go along with his goal Friday night.

Three of the top four scorers are freshmen, and five newcomers have at least two points on the season.

The Black Bears are now above .500 on the season entering their first league games of the Red Gendron era. Maine travels to face UMass for a pair at the Mullins Center in Amherst this weekend. The two games this past weekend were nonconference games due to the reduction in league games with the addition of Notre Dame to Hockey East.

Jeff Cox covers college and junior hockey, NCAA recruiting, NHL Draft prospects and the AHL for SBNation. Follow him on twitter @JeffCoxSBNation.