ORONO – The University of Maine hockey team gave coach Shawn Walsh a rousing welcome home present and then withstood a Providence College rally for a 6-3 Hockey East victory here Friday evening.

Maine is now 14-9-1 overall, 6-6-1 in Hockey East. Providence fell to 8-13-1, 6-7-1. The teams play again tonight at 7:30.

In front of their first sellout crowd (5,250) of the year in Walsh’s first home game since serving a one-year suspension for NCAA violations, the Bears bolted out to 3-0 and 5-1 leads en route to outshooting Providence 19-5 in the first period.

Maine took the game’s first 16 shots on goal before Providence got its first shot with 7:10 left in period.

Ben Guite, Scott Parmentier, and Brian White staked Maine to a 3-0 lead and, after Richard Miller scored for the Friars, Bobby Stewart and Jason Vitorino made it 5-1.

Nick Lent and Travis Dillabough made it interesting by scoring in the final 2:53 of the period. Dillabough’s came as the period ended.

Steve Kariya re-established a three-goal lead for Maine with 1:02 left in the second period.

“That sixth goal was a big goal,” said Providence coach Paul Pooley. “If we were down by two, we would have been OK. But being down by three is an awful lot.”

“That gave us some breathing room,” agreed Walsh.”It was a great effort by Steve.”

Kariya scored off a two-on-two with Parmentier after the two criss-crossed in the top of the slot.

“Both of their players went with Scott and that gave me an open lane to the net,” said Kariya, who skated from left to right before taking a 16-foot wrist shot from between the circles. “I shot it back to the far side from where the goalie (Dan Dennis) had just come. It hit him and went in.”

The Bears didn’t appear as though they’d need a second-period goal the way they came out of the locker room to start the game.

“We wanted to win it for Coach Walsh,” said junior defenseman White. “We sent him out with a loss last year to the Swedish Junior Nationals [5-2].”

“This was great for coach. He deserved the standing ovation,” said Kariya.

The Bears were denied time and time again by Dennis in the early going before Guite opened the scoring 8:36 into the period.

After leveling PC defenseman John Tuohy behind the net and popping the puck loose, Guite skated to the front of the net where Cory Larose shoveled it to him.

“It was a great pass by Cory. I just tried to deflect it and whack at it,” said Guite, who was at the top of the crease and banged it in off Dennis’ body.

Parmentier scored 23 seconds later with a 14-foot wrist shot off a Bobby Stewart drop pass.

“I went low to the blocker side,” said Parmentier.

White made it 3-0 by sneaking down the slot from the right point and shoving home a Trevor Roenick feed from behind the net.

“Trevor looked up and saw me, so I went to the net. I knew we had a couple of guys back,” said White. “He made a great pass and I deflected it home.”

After Miller’s 50-foot slap shot went in off goalie Javier Gorriti’s stick, Stewart lifted a Parmentier feed over Dennis from the low slot and Vitorino converted a Larose pass from in front.

Lent tapped in a Stefan Brannare pass before the persistent Dillabough swatted in a third rebound at the buzzer.

After a shaky start, Gorriti stopped the Friars’ final 18 shots over the last two periods.

“I wasn’t going to let those goals get me down. I felt good and we were still up by two,” said Gorriti.

The Bear penalty killers also did an exceptional job, killing off all seven Friar power plays.

“We swamped them early and we were able to score,” said Walsh while watching videotape of the game afterward. He added that he appeciated the standing ovation from the fans and that he felt all of his forwards “played very well down low.”

Pooley said Maine played well.