AMHERST, Mass. – Yet another streak came to an end Friday night as the University of Maine Black Bears continued their downward spiral.

The University of Massachusetts received a pair of goals from freshman right wing Stephen Werner and snapped a 14-game losing streak against the Black Bears by virtue of a thorough and impressive 4-2 triumph at the Mullins Center.

Providence ended a streak eight nights ago when it beat Maine in Orono for the first time in 25 games. Fifteen days ago, Boston College snapped Maine’s 28-game home unbeaten streak.

Power-play goals by Thomas Pock and Chris Capraro sandwiched a power-play score by Maine’s Francis Nault to give the Minutemen a 2-1 lead after the first period and Werner made it 3-1 with an all-important breakaway goal with 39 seconds remaining in the second period.

Werner sewed up the win at the 9:35 mark of the third period before Maine’s Chris Heisten added a consolation goal with 5:17 remaining.

The Minutemen, losers of eight of their last 10 entering the game, are now 16-15-1 overall, 9-13 in Hockey East. Maine fell to 22-6-5 and 12-5-4. The Bears have now lost their last four series openers. Maine is 2-4-1 in its last seven.

The Minutemen completely dominated all aspects of the first period, outworking the Bears and playing with much more passion and physicality.

The Bears played better in the second period but missed a couple of good chances to equalize, including a Marty Kariya breakaway, and Werner dealt them a devastating blow on a four-on-four situation thanks to a little good fortune.

A Jeff Lang clearout hit a linesman’s skate and stayed at center ice and Mike Warner fed the puck to the streaking Werner.

Werner, Maine goalie Jimmy Howard’s teammate with the United States National Development program’s Under-18 team a year ago, made several moves before sliding it past Howard.

“Whenever I beat him in practice last year, it was with a deke. I used to go around him. He’s one of the hardest goalies to score on with the first shot,” said Werner, who used the same move. “Jimmy read it really well but I was able to put it under his pad.”

Howard said, “I don’t like to make excuses but the net was a little off its moorings. He put it between my skate and the left post.”

Maine’s Greg Moore had a golden opportunity to get that one back with two seconds left in the period when he broke down the slot and received a pass from Kariya. But his 10-foot backhander sailed over the net.

In the third period, Werner was forechecking aggressively when Kariya had trouble corralling a pass in the low slot. Werner stole it and wasted little time releasing a quick backhander that deflected off Troy Barnes’ stick into the upper far corner over Howard’s glove.

“I wanted to prevent the shot but I should have let Jimmy play it. He had the angle,” said Barnes.

“I just tried to shoot it as hard and as quickly as I could,” said Werner.

Heisten scored off a Derek Damon rebound left but it was too little, too late.

Earlier in the second period, Kariya’s breakaway opportunity to tie it went for naught when the puck bounced on Kariya at the last second.

“I had the whole open side,” said Kariya. “It was a bad break.”

Werner said the Minutemen played their best game of the season and UMass coach Don Cahoon was equally pleased.

“We played physical but we also played smart. We received scoring contributions from our top lines and we did a good job closing gaps and getting a body on people. We moved the puck well on the power play, we made good zone entry plays and showed good patience.”

Pock opened the scoring by one-timing a Marvin Degon point-to-point pass past Howard, who said he was moved out of the way by a Minuteman screener.

Nault tied it with a one-timer from the left point off a Moore feed. He beat UMass goalie Gabe Winer high to the stick side.

But Capraro gave UMass the lead for good when he dug a Degon rebound out of a clustered goalmouth and managed to flip it up over Howard.

UMass outshot Maine 31-30.

“We’ve got to come out ready to play,” said Maine junior defenseman Francis Nault noting that Maine fell behind Providence 3-0 in the first period of their game eight days ago. “It seems like it takes a couple of goals [against] to get us going.”

Maine and UMass will play again tonight at 7.

MINUTEMEN 4, BLACK BEARS 2

Maine (22-6-5) 2 0 1 ? 2

UMass. (16-15-1) 2 1 1 ? 4

First period ? 1. UMass, Pock 16 (Degon, Turner), 4:40 (pp); 2. Maine, Nault 10 (Moore, Kariya), 10:12 (pp); 3. UMass, Capraro 6 (Degon), 16:17 (pp). Penalties: Maine, Mullin, hooking, 4:02; UMass, Kuiper, interference, 8:30; Maine, Shields, holding, 15:34; UMass, Mauldin, holding, 16:27; Maine, Heisten, hitting from behind, 19:25.

Second period ? 4. UMass, Werner 11 (Warner, Lang), 19:21. Penalties: UMass, Pock, holding, 2:04; UMass, Warner, interference, 8:12; UMass, Alden, roughing, 15:25; Maine, Lawson, roughing, 15:25; Maine, Shields, hitting from behind, 17:26; UMass, Pock, holding, 18:33.

Third period ? 5. UMass, Werner 12 (Mauldin, Anderson), 9:35; 6. Maine, Heisten 14 (Damon, Shields), 14:43. Penalties: none.

Shots on goal: Maine 6-13-11 – 30; UMass 14-14-3 – 31

Goaltenders: Maine, Howard (31 shots-27 saves); UMass, Winer (30-28)

Power plays: Maine 1-4; UMass 2-4

High-percentage scoring chances: Maine 7-15-9?31; UMass 9-15-6?30

Attendance: 5,084