Hockey East Sunday Recap: Diamond scores overtime winner as Maine finally gets home win

Maine 4, UMass-Lowell 3 (OT)

Senior Joey Diamond scored his second goal of the game and fourth goal of the weekend with 1:01 remaining in overtime as the Black Bears got off the schneid with their first home victory of the season on Super Bowl Sunday afternoon at Alfond Arena. The Long Beach, N.Y. native now leads the Black Bears with ten goals on the season and is in the midst of a stretch of six strikes and eight points in five games, as he also posted an assist on sophomore Jake Rutt's game-tying goal at 16:48 of the second period.

For the River Hawks, which dropped his second consecutive decision after a 1-0 loss at Merrimack on Friday, rookie Ryan McGrath scored a goal and an assist, while sophomore Zach Kamrass dished out two assists. Following Diamond's strike 9:50 in to lift Maine, UML quickly tied the score on Michael Fallon's first-collegiate goal at the 10:04 mark.

Each of the four goals scored in the middle period came on the man-advantage, including UML senior Riley Wetmore's tenth of the year at 7:53 to put the visitors ahead. Rutt also registered an assist as rookie Ryan Lomberg scored a big one on River Hawk junior Doug Carr (25 saves) at 13:23.

McGrath's goal to put Lowell up again came less than three minutes later, before Rutt squared the score once again 30 seconds later.

En route to improving to 6-7-5 on the year, junior Martin Ouellette made 35 saves, including ten in the middle period and seven in overtime.

With the win, Maine improves to 4-9-5 in league play this season and now sits in sole possession of eighth place in the Hockey East standings. The Black Bears were in a ninth-place tie with Northeastern entering the matinee and now the Huskies will enter Monday's Beapot opener in the cellar of the standings - though just two points back of the final playoff position.

Joshua Kummins covers Hockey East for SB Nation. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKummins.