ALBANY, N.Y. – University of Maine junior center Michel Leveille is known for his playmaking and scoring prowess, but it was a defensive play he made that proved pivotal Sunday afternoon.

With his Black Bears hockey team clinging to a 4-3 lead over Michigan State with 4:48 remaining in the NCAA East Regional final, Leveille was able to tie up the stick of MSU captain and leading scorer Drew Miller as the puck sat tantalizingly in the crease.

A little tap and the game was deadlocked, but Leveille didn’t allow Miller to get to the puck, and Maine hung on for a 5-4 win that earned the Bears their 10th Frozen Four appearance.

The Frozen Four will be held April 6-8 at Milwaukee’s Bradley Center, site of Maine’s first NCAA championship in 1993. Maine, which also won the national title in ’99, is two wins away from its third title.

The Bears improved to 28-11-2 and now have won 19 of their last 26 NCAA Tournament games. Maine is 10-1-2 in its last 13 games and will play in the national semifinal against either Wisconsin or Cornell.

CCHA champion Michigan State finished at 24-12-8 and had a four-game winning streak snapped. The five goals were the most allowed by Michigan State since a 5-5 overtime tie with Michigan on Jan. 28.

MSU right wing Colton Fretter had wheeled around the Maine net and tried to convert a wraparound to the left of Maine freshman goalie Ben Bishop, but his shot glanced off Bishop’s glove and the crossbar before landing in the crease.

“It was laying there and I went to swipe at it but somebody had my stick,” said Miller.

Leveille said he saw the puck land and said, “Whoa, jeez. I ducked down and blocked his stick so he couldn’t get a grip on it. He [Miller] was reaching backwards so he didn’t have any strength.

“Sometimes you’ve got to do dirty jobs. You’ve got to sacrifice your body. I didn’t want it to go in and have to go into overtime,” Leveille added.

Bishop said he was going from one post to the other, but his skate got caught in a rut.

“I got my glove there and it went off my glove and the crossbar,” Bishop said. “I saw it behind me, and I laid back to try to stop anything from going in.”

Maine senior right wing and captain Greg Moore iced the game with an empty-net goal off a pass from Josh Soares with 37 seconds remaining.

Miller capped the scoring with 4.2 seconds left but it was too little, too late for the Spartans.

The Black Bears appeared to be on their way to a comfortable win when they jumped out to 3-0 and 4-1 leads.

Maine freshman defenseman Matt Duffy opened the scoring 3:13 into the game before senior right wing John Hopson, named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player, scored goals 6:17 apart later in the period. The second came on the power play. Both came off tip-ins.

Freshman right wing Tim Crowder gave the Spartans some life with a power-play goal with 44 seconds left in the first period.

Senior center Derek Damon, who missed the 6-1 win over Harvard on Saturday because of a one-game suspension for violating the UMaine Student-Athlete Code of Conduct by missing classes, answered on the power play 3:35 into the second period.

But the Spartans, who were outshot at one point in the first period 16-3, began generating opportunities. They were rewarded for their tenacity when Crowder scored another power-play goal at the eight-minute mark, and Jim McKenzie scored from a difficult angle near the right-wing boards at the 19:00 mark.

Bishop said McKenzie’s shot glanced in off the stick of Maine defenseman Bret Tyler.

MSU had a 25-10 shots-on-goal margin from the end of the first period to the start of the third period.

But the Bears, who had been back on their heels in the second period, protected the lead effectively in the third period and improved to 103-0-6 over their last 109 games when taking a lead into the third period.

“We refocused after the second period and, in the third period, we played more like we did in the first period,” Moore said. “We were getting pucks deep, forechecking hard, trying to keep it in their end and taking away their time and space. That definitely helped us get the win.”

Michigan State coach Rick Comley said his team got tired.

“We had to use so much energy in the second period to get back into the hockey game, that second wave of emotion is really tough to get,” he said.

MSU goalie Jeff Lerg, the CCHA Rookie of the Year, said Maine earned its goals.

“They made good plays on their goals,” said the 5-foot-6 Lerg. “They threw it to the net and had a lot of tips and a lot of traffic around me.”

All three first-period goals involved traffic in front.

Damon won a faceoff draw to Duffy and he skated to the midpoint and snapped a low shot to the net.

“It hit one of my defensemen, Jared Nightingale, and deflected in,” said Lerg.

Hopson’s first goal resulted from a Mike Hamilton wrister originating from the left-wing boards.

“It was a great play by Mike. He said he saw me beat my guy [out of the corner] and all he wanted to do was put it out there for a deflection. I tipped it five-hole,” said Hopson.

Duffy one-timed a Keenan Hopson pass toward the net front on the next one.

“Mike and I were both there and it hit my stick and went far side,” John Hopson said.

Crowder got one back when he positioned himself at the far post and chipped a David Booth pass behind Bishop.

Damon’s goal was set up by a precise cross-ice pass from Soares.

“He saw one of their defensemen leave the net front and made an unbelievable pass. I was able to bang it in,” said Damon, who swept it just inside the short-side post before Lerg could get over.

Crowder’s redirection off a Tim Kennedy pass trickled across the goal line as Bishop tried to scramble to his left.

McKenzie cut it to 4-3 when his wrister hit Tyler’s stick and beat Bishop to the short side.

MSU had 12 Grade-A (high-percentage) shot attempts in the second period, but just six in the third period with Maine generating four.

“We’ve been a strong third-period team all year,” said Leveille.

Bishop finished with 33 saves, including 13 Grade-A stops. Lerg wound up with 29 including 10 Grade-A’s.

“This is a great feeling. This is what we worked for all year,” said Bishop.

John Hopson was joined on the all-tourney team by Leveille, Duffy, Bishop and Michigan State’s Crowder and defenseman Corey Potter.