ORONO – Two All-American goaltenders took the ice for Saturday night’s Governors’ Cup Tournament championship game between the University of Maine and the University of Vermont.

Maine senior Blair Allison and Vermont junior Tim Thomas lived up to those lofty expectations and a freshman right winger, Steve Kariya, decided it two minutes and seven seconds into overtime as the Bears edged Vermont 2-1 in a fast-paced thriller at the Alfond Arena.

Maine is now 9-3-2 with four straight wins while Vermont fell to 7-2-1 and had its seven-game unbeaten streak snapped. Maine had been ranked seventh in the country and UVM was fourth.

Allison finished with 27 saves, including 15 off high-percentage shots, and Thomas kicked aside 24 shots, 17 of those being high-percentage opportunities, as they duelled brilliantly.

“We both played really well. We both played like All-Americans,” said Thomas, a second-team Eastern All-American a year ago. “You go into a lot of games knowing you’re the better goalie and you can make your team win. But I went into this game saying they’ve got a good goalie, too, so I’ve got to keep them to as few goals as possible to keep us in the game.”

First-team Eastern All-American Allison said Thomas was a very good goalie but he downplayed the battle of the crease.

“What he does doesn’t affect what I do,” said Allison. “`The team played real well tonight. It’s easy to play goal when your guys are picking up their guys and you don’t have to worry about passes across [the slot]. All you have to do is play the shots. I just have to stand there cutting off the angles and letting everything hit me.”

Kariya decided the game off a three-on-two initiated by defenseman Jason Mansoff, who fed the streaking Kariya on the right wing.

“They turned the puck over just inside our zone and I gave it up to Stevie,” said Mansoff, who jumped into the middle of the three-on-two with Reg Cardinal on the left side. “Stevie dished it in front, I got a piece of it and it went into the goalie’s pads. It went into the high slot and Stevie made a great play to get to it and he fired it into the top corner.”

Kariya said, “I remember being in the slot, the puck popped out, I saw some room up top and tried to get it off the ice. I was on my backhand so I had to spin around to my forehand. I was in the right place at the right time.”

Thomas said he stopped two shots and then someone fell on him.

“The Maine guys crashed the net and were on top of me all night. It took me longer than usual to get up. I didn’t see the shot until it was almost past me. I threw my hands in the air hoping to get something in the way but I just missed it,” he said.

Kariya said he was eager to atone for the Vermont goal since he and linemates Cardinal and Dan Shermerhorn were victimized.

Maine dominated the first period and got the game’s first goal when Shawn Wansborough followed up his own rebound and flipped a 15-footer past Thomas’ right pad.

Sophomore right winger Jason Hamilton tied it up at the 3:14 mark of the third period by scoring off the rebound of an Eric Lavoie shot during a scramble in front.

Vermont then stormed the Maine net for several minutes, taking the first eight shots of the period, but Allison held them off until his mates regrouped.

“Both goalies were tremendous. We weren’t quite as opportunistic as they were. They went to the net a little stronger than we did. But I give our guys credit for coming back in the third period,” said UVM coach Mike Gilligan.

“It was a championship game that lived up to its billing,” said Maine coach Shawn Walsh. “Vermont played very hard and very spirited. They have a lot of skill and deserve their top 10 ranking.

“The same guy who set up the winning goal in the Los Angeles tournament scored the winning goal here. Maybe this guy has magic in tournaments,” Walsh added.

Allison was the MVP and Thomas was the all-tourney goalie. Maine’s Brett Clark and Vermont’s Steve McKell were the all-tourney defensemen and the forwards were Kariya, Wansborough and UMass-Lowell center Jeff Daw, who had a career-high six points on three goals and three assists in the River Hawks’ come-from-behind 9-6 consolation game win over New Hampshire.

Black Bears 2, Catamounts 1 (Championship Game, Overtime) Maine 1 0 0 1 – 2 Vermont 0 0 1 0 – 1

First period – 1. Maine, Wansborough 10 (Parmentier), 5:46. Penalties – UVM, Hallman, interference, 1:40; Maine, Kariya, interference, 6:39; UVM, Ruid, high sticking, 7:22; UVM, McKell, interference, 11:26; Maine, Cardinal, interference, 13:32; UVM, Hallman, holding, 19:11

Second period – No scoring. Penalties – UVM, McKell, interference, 8:19; Maine, Vitorino, elbowing, 11:52; UVM, bench minor for too many men on the ice (served by Ruid), 15:33; UVM, Stelljes, hooking, 19:30.

Third period – 2. UVM, Hamilton 1 (Lavoie, Johnson), 3:14. Penalties – none.

Overtime – 3. Maine, Kariya 3 (Cardinal, Mansoff), 2:07. Penalties – none.

Shots on goal – Maine 8-9-4-5 – 26; UVM 6-8-13-1 – 28

Goaltenders – Maine, Blair Allison; UVM, Tim Thomas

Power-play opportunities – Maine 0-7, UVM 0-3

Attendance – 4,307

River Hawks 9, Wildcats 6

(Consolation Game) UMass-Lowell 3 1 5 – 9 UNH 3 3 0 – 6

First period – 1. UNH, Harris 1 (Krog), 3:03; 2. UML, Dartsch 5 (Sbrocca, Mayes), 6:22; 3. UNH, Mowers 10 (Nickulas, Pleau), 6:22, (pp); 4. UML, Mahoney 5 (Campbell), 9:05, (sh); 5. UNH, Pleau 2 (Hall, Bekar), 16:28, PP; 6. UML, Daw 3 (Concannon, Campbell), 19:14, (pp). Penalties – UNH, Nickulas, cross checking, 3:55; UML, Cappelletti, holding the stick, 6:40; UML, Donovan, slashing, 7:58; UNH, Krog, slashing, 11:17; UML, Mulligan, interference, 11:17; UML, Campbell, boarding, 14:44; UNH, Pleau, holding, 19:00.

Second period – 7. UNH, Nolan 6 (Boguniecki, Krog), 1:41, (pp); 8. UNH, Nickulas 9 (Mowers, Hall), 8:27; 9. UML, Mayes 1 (Sbrocca, Daw), 15:31, (pp); 10. UNH, Nickulas 10 (unassisted), 19:15; SH. Penalties – UML, Tormey, holding, 1:07; UML, Donovan, hitting from behind, 2:19; UNH, Nolan, slashing, 7:32; UML, Mahoney, unsportsmanlike conduct, 7:32; UML, Tormey, hooking, 9:29; UML, Campbell, unsportsmanlike conduct, 13:20; UNH, Harris, unsportsmanlike conduct, 13:20; UNH, bench minor for too many men on the ice (served by McCready), 14:06; UNH, Johnson, slashing, 15:31; UML, Nicholishen, interference, 17:48.

Third period – 11. UML, Sandholm 1 (Salsman, Basaraba), :48; 12. UML, Daw 4 (Donovan, Campbell), 9:16; (sh); 13. UML, Daw 5 (Donovan, Nicholishen), 10:22; 14. UML, Concannon 5 (Daw), 14:17; 15. UML, Concannon 6 (Tormey, Daw), 15:59. Penalties – UNH, Fitzgerald, boarding, 2:25; UML, Concannon, hooking, 3:57; UML, Mahoney, high sticking, 6:26.

Shots on goal: UML 11-8-12 – 31; UNH 11-20-12 – 43

Goaltenders: UML, Martin Fillion; UNH, Brian Larochelle

Power-play opportunities: UML 2-5, UNH 4-9