ORONO – The University of Maine’s hockey team learned some valuable lessons during its 1-1 weekend at the Nye Frontier Classic in Anchorage, Alaska.

Maine was shut out by Colorado College 3-0 on Friday night before beating Alaska-Anchorage 4-2 on Saturday.

The second period of the Colorado College game, in which Maine was outscored 2-0 and outshot 13-6, upset coach Tim Whitehead.

“We were, plain and simple, outworked. And we paid a price for it,” Whitehead said. “We don’t want to learn that lesson again. You aren’t going to win every game but you never want to finish a game saying ‘I wonder if we could have beaten them if we had worked hard.”

He also said his team was “atrocious” on faceoffs throughout the game; the forwards didn’t help their defensemen by blocking out the Tiger forwards and the Bears didn’t protect the front of their net.

“I was very pleased with the effort the second night,” said Whitehead. “We won 64 percent of our faceoffs and Chris Heisten scored an important faceoff goal [to make it 4-2 with 1:25 remaining]. We did a better job blocking out and protecting the front of our net.”

Four first-year players who didn’t play the first night played the second night and performed well, according to Whitehead.

Freshmen Steve Mullin and Travis Wight took regular shifts on defense; redshirt freshman Derek Damon of Bangor played left wing on a line with sophomore Ben Murphy and John Ronan; and redshirt junior Frank Doyle made his debut in goal and made 22 saves.

“Steve and Travis were very positive contributors. They just need to play to see how far they can elevate their games. I was impressed with how they competed,” Whitehead said. “Frank hadn’t played in over a year and played very well. And Derek did a good job.”

He added that freshman goalie Jimmy Howard (29 saves) turned in a solid performance Friday “but we didn’t give him any help.”

Whitehead said he will continue to juggle his lines “until we find combos who play consistently well together.”

Maine hosts 2-2 Western Michigan on Saturday (7 p.m.) and Sunday (5 p.m.).

“It’ll be Homecoming Weekend and [late Maine coach] Shawn Walsh is going into the University of Maine Hall of Fame [on Friday]. His wife, Lynne, is going to drop the ceremonial puck on Saturday night. That’ll mean a lot to the team and to all of us,” said Whitehead, who replaced Walsh after he died from the complications associated with kidney cancer on Sept. 24, 2001.