ORONO – Goals have been hard to come by for the University of Maine Black Bears over the past three seasons. Maine had scored seven or more goals just five times during that span.

The Bears erupted at the expense of Bowling Green State University Friday night as they received points from 14 different players en route to an impressive 9-1 triumph in the Ice Breaker Cup Tournament semifinal.

Maine will now meet St. Cloud State, a 5-1 winner over Clarkson in Friday’s opener, in Saturday’s 8 p.m. championship game. Bowling Green and Clarkson will square of at 5.

“They came out flying,” said Bowling Green senior center and captain Greg Day. “They outplayed us. We left our goalie [Tyler Masters] out to dry.”

Bowling Green had an 18-hour bus trip over two days to get to Orono Thursday night but Day said, “that’s no excuse” for his team’s performance.

Sophomore left winger Todd Jackson and sophomore defenseman Francis Nault each had two goals and an assist and junior left winger Michael Schutte had a goal and two assists to pace the Bears.

Colin Shields and Robert Liscak contributed a goal and an assist each with Gray Shaneberger and Niko Dimitrakos chipping in two assists apiece.

Lucas Lawson and John Ronan had the other Bear goals while sophomore defenseman Brian Escobedo tallied the Bowling Green goal.

“Everyone contributed,” said senior right winger Niko Dimitrakos. “It feels good when everyone contributes. All four lines are capable of scoring. We have great team depth. We don’t really have a checking line.”

Junior forward-turned-defenseman Tommy Reimann added, “Everything carried over from the Moncton game [8-0 exhibition win last Friday]. Our defensive effort created offensive chances for us.”

It took the Bears 13 shots on goal to put their first puck behind Masters but Lucas Lawson’s game-opening power-play goal at the 9:43 mark triggered a three-goal flurry over a span of 4:59.

Shields scored 3:20 later and Schutte made it 3-0 at the 14:42 mark.

Maine outshot Bowling Green 20-6 in the first period and attempted 35 shots to the Falcons’ nine.

Lawson supplied the Bears with a lead they would never relinquish off the rebound of a Dimitrakos shot from the right circle. Chris Heisten had a whack at the puck but missed it. It squirted to Lawson and he snapped it over Falcon goalie Tyler Masters from the left circle.

“The puck hopped over Chris’ stick and I got to it, turned around and shot it,” said Lawson’s whose goal gave Maine a 13-3 shot advantage at that point.

Shields, the British National team player making his Maine debut after redshirting a year ago, took a Reimann pass in full stride down the right wing and sizzled a rising 20-foot wrist shot over the glove of Masters into the short side.

“Niko did a great job lifting one of their guys’ stick [to set the play in motion],” pointed out Shields. “Tommy passed it over to me and went to the net. We had a two-on-one. The goalie leaned over toward Tommy and that gave me the short side.”

The Bears continued buzzing the BG net and Schutte was set up perfectly by Shields for the third goal. Schutte was positioned at the post to Masters’ left and simply had to deposit Shields’ pass into the short side corner from 12 feet.

“I had an empty net,” said Schutte.

In the second period, Nault’s slappers from the point produced the fourth and fifth goals as his first blast deflected in off Liscak’s leg and his second went straight into the short side.

Jackson got the next two as he flipped a perfect feed from Shaneberger into a half-vacant net and then tucked home a Schutte rebound.

Escobedo cleanly beat Maine goalie Matt Yeats from 10 feet after being set up by Mark Wires and Tyler Knight.

Ronan and Nault added third-period goals as Maine reached the nine-goal plateau for the first time since a 9-4 win over New Hampshire on Jan. 7, 2000.

Maine interim coach Tim Whitehead, making his debut after replacing the late Shawn Walsh, said he was pleased with the performance.

“The guys came to play and we had a pretty good tempo. The thing I liked the most was the scoring was spread out. The Jackson-Liscak-Shaneberger line set the tempo offensively and defensively and everyone followed,” said Whitehead.

Before the game, Bowling Green coach Buddy Powers presented the Maine captains with a Bowling Green jersey with Walsh’s name on it and the number 78. That was the year Walsh graduated from Bowling Green.

St. Cloud State University went 31-9-1 a year ago, won the Western Collegiate Hockey Association tournament championship, and reached the NCAA Tournament quarterfinals.

Based on Friday’s performance against Clarkson, the Huskies look like they will be an NCAA tourney contender again this season as they used three first-period goals to post an impressive victory.

Freshman right wings Matt Hendricks and Dave Iannazzo staked the Huskies to a 2-0 lead with goals 6:23 apart and junior center Mark Hartigan left the Knights reeling by scoring with one second remaining in the period.

St. Cloud State outshot Clarkson 16-2 over the initial 20 minutes and a rising wrist shot by Ryan Malone directly off a Jon Cullen faceoff win increased the lead to 4-0 just 1:21 into the middle period.

Chris Line scored for Clarkson on a four-on-four with 1:34 left in the second period when his wrister glanced in off a St. Cloud defenseman’s skate.

But the Knights missed a couple of glorious chances with two-man and one-man advantages later in the period carrying over into the third period.

BLACK BEARS 9, FALCONS 1

Bowling Green (0-1) 0 1 0 ? 1

Maine (1-0) 3 4 2 ? 9

First period ? 1. Maine, Lawson 1 (Dimitrakos, Heisten), 9:43 (pp); 2. Maine, Shields 1 (Reimann, Murphy), 3. Maine, Schutte 1 (Shields, Kariya), 14:42 (pp). Penalties: BG, Hewson, interference, 2:24; BG, Moore, holding, 8:06; Maine, Loya, holding, 11:02; BG, McConvey, interference, 14:21.

Second period ? 4. Maine, Liscak 1 (Lawson, Nault), 0:52; 5. Maine, Nault (Schutte), 4:35; 6. Maine, Jackson 1 (Shaneberger), 7:47; 7. Maine, Jackson 2 (Schutte), 12:24; 8. BG, Escobedo 1 (Wires, Knight), 18:41. Penalties: Maine, Jankus, hitting after the whistle, 5:18; BG, Wires, hitting after the whistle, 5:18; BG, McConvey, 5:18; Maine, Shields, tripping, 8:10; Maine, 8:57; Maine, Murphy, elbowing, 12:57; BG, Pappas, interference, 14:14; Maine, Jankus, elbowing, 16:22; BG, Brudzewski, hitting after the whistle, 18:56; BG, Eaton, cross checking, 19:17.

Third period ? 9. Maine, Ronan 1 (Loya, Dimitrakos), 16:24 (pp); 10. Maine, Nault 2 (Shaneberger), 18:32. Penalties: Maine, Shields, hooking, 1:19; BG, Brudzewski, slashing, 10:39; BG, Bieksa, hitting after whistle, 12:13; BG, Wires, tripping, 14:27

Shots on goal: Bowling Green 6-6-6?18; Maine 20-12-9?41

Goalies: Bowling Green, Masters (32 shots-25 saves), Sigalet (9-7); Maine, Yeats (13-12), Morrison (5-5)

High-percentage scoring chances: Bowling Green 4-3-1?8; Maine 17-12-9?38

Attendance: 5,124

HUSKIES 5, GOLDEN KNIGHTS 1

St. Cloud (1-0) 3 1 1?5

Clarkson (0-1) 0 1 0?1

First period ? 1. St. Cloud, Hendricks 1 (Gens, Hartigan), 9:25; 2. SC, Iannazzo 1 (Doyle, Szabo), 15:48; 3. SC, Hartigan 1 (DiCasmirro, Hendricks), 19:59. Penalties: none

Second period ? 4. SC, Malone 1 (Cullen), 1:21; 5. Clarkson, Line 1 (Desrochers, Ellis-Toddington), 18:26. Penalties: Cl, Poapst, slashing, 4:32; SC, LaMere, hooking, 4:32; SC, Walsh, interference, 10:18; Cl, Manzano, high sticking, 13:43; SC, Hartigan, tripping, 13:52; SC, Finger, holding, 15:15; Cl, Latulippe, tripping, 16:46; SC, Szabo, hooking, 18:08; SC, Motzko, interference, 19:12.

Third period ? 6. SC, Doyle 1 (Johnson, Weasler), 1:52. Penalties: Cl, Faulkner, roughing, 5:07; SC, DiCasmirro, elbowing, 9:17; Cl, Latulippe, roughing, 9:17; SC, Finger, interference, 14:00

Shots on goal: St. Cloud 16-7-7?30; Clarkson 2-15-14?31

High-percentage scoring chances: St. Cloud 14-3-7?24; Clarkson 3-12-9?24

Goaltenders: St. Cloud, Weasler (31 shots-30 saves); Clarkson, Walsh (30-25)