Bears seeking upset over rival New Hampshire

The University of Maine women’s hockey team has picked an opportune time to peak, just before the first-ever Hockey East Tournament.

And they’re hoping to carry the momentum of their best five-game stretch of the season to an upset win over the University of New Hampshire in Saturday’s 1 p.m. semifinal at Northeastern’s Matthews Arena in Boston.

Maine is 12-14-4 overall, 5-8-2 in Hockey East, and is seeded third. New Hampshire, 26-6-2 and 13-2, is the second seed.

Top seed Providence (22-6-6, 13-1-1) and No. 4 UConn (11-19-4, 3-9-3) meet in the second game at approximately 4.

Maine is 4-1 in its last five games and the only loss was a 2-1 setback to nationally-ranked Providence.

“We’re playing our best hockey right now,” said senior goalie Dawn Froats.

“The only difference for us down the stretch was we started getting some breaks,” said sixth-year Bear coach Rick Filighera. “We’ve started finishing our chances. We felt we lost games in which we were the better team. We’ve had eight games in which we pulled the goalie for an extra attacker [to try to tie the game].”

“We didn’t get any lucky bounces early in the season. Lately, they’ve started to come,” said senior right wing and German Olympian Raffi Wolf.

Maine has been shut out seven times but just once over its last 12 games. The Bears closed out the regular season with 2-0 and 5-1 wins over UConn.

They needed a strong finish to secure a tourney spot and that’s what they produced.

“What I liked about the team is they stayed the course. They didn’t panic. It was frustrating but instead of dwelling on it, they just moved on and played the next game,” said Filighera.

“Our lines are working the best they have all season right now,” said senior center Nicole Munro. “Raffi is back with Jarin [Sjogren] and [Meagan] Aarts and they’ve been awesome. We have three good lines. Anyone can score.”

“Every line knows what it’s job is out there and the defensemen have been doing the simple things right which helps us out a lot,” said senior center Sjogren. “And our major strength right now is our confidence.”

Another important plus has been the goaltending of Froats (8-3-1, 1.66 goals-against average, .921 save percentage) and junior Lara Smart (4-11-3, 2.24, .921).

Aarts (12 goals, 14 assists), right wing Karen Droog (15 & 7), Sjogren (8 & 9) and Munro (6 & 9) are the leading scorers while the defense features freshmen Vicky Johnstone (2 & 3) and Morgan Janusc (0 & 5), junior Naomi Smethurst (2 & 8) and sophomore Laura Maddin (1 & 5).