Bears eager for battle vs. UNH Goalie Huggon a challenge for UM

They figure there isn’t any pressure on them. And they are playing their best hockey of the season.

So a confident University of Maine’s women’s hockey team will try to ruin the University of New Hampshire’s NCAA Tournament aspirations and take a step closer to a Hockey East title when they collide in the first-ever league tournament semifinal at the Matthews Arena in Boston Saturday.

Game time is 1 p.m.

Maine is 12-14-4 overall and the third seed while UNH is 26-6-2 and the second seed. The second game, slated for a 4 p.m. start, will pit top seed Providence College, 22-6-6 against No. 4 Connecticut 11-19-4.

Sunday’s championship game is set for 2 p.m.

The primary obstacle for Maine will be solving UNH senior goalie and Hockey East Player of the Year Jen Huggon, who has posted two of her nine league shutouts this season against the Bears and had a miniscule 0.89 goals-against average in 15 league games.

“Her biggest attribute is her ability to take away the bottom of the net. If you get in too tight, you aren’t going to score. Hopefully, we’ll be able to beat her upstairs,” said Maine sixth-year coach Rick Filighera.

“She’s good. We’ve got to get in her face,” said Maine senior center Jarin Sjogren.

“We have to rush the net and put pressure on her. If we respect her [too much] and don’t do that, she’s going to make all those saves,” said Maine senior center Nicole Munro.

Filighera said his team will also have to try to get the 5-foot-4 Huggon moving from side to side.

“She doesn’t have the physical size to get all the way across from one post to the other,” said Filighera. “We may also want to fake shots and go upstairs. She likes to go down in the butterfly.”

Senior right wing and German Olympian Raffi Wolf said it will also be important to “shoot from anywhere and go for rebounds.”

Filighera said the fact his team wasn’t guaranteed a playoff spot until the sweep of UConn on the last weekend of the season will benefit his team.

“We’ve been playing a lot of playoff hockey already,” said Filighera, who feels his Bears will have to “manage their emotions.

“We’ll probably be playing in front of the largest crowd we’ve ever played before,” said Filighera. “We have to focus on going from shift to shift doing the things we had to do to get into the playoffs.”

Maine has never had a lead in the three games against UNH this season and Filighera said it might be interesting to see how UNH reacts if his Bears can grab a lead.

“UNH has a lot more at stake than we do,” said Filighera referring to UNH’s desperate quest for an NCAA Tournament berth.

“We’ve got nothing to lose,” said Munro.

UNH had three Hockey East first-teamers in Huggon, defenseman Kristen Thomas and left wing Stephanie Jones and a second-teamer in defenseman Allison Edgar while Maine had just one selection, junior right wing Karen Droog, a second team pick.

Huggon was the player of the year; UNH’s Brian McCloskey was the coach of the year and Wildcat left wing Lindsay Hansen was the rookie of the year.

The winner of the Hockey East tournament won’t receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament because it is just a four-team affair.