photo courtesy of Don Treeger

The highly anticipated battle for second place in Hockey East between the UMass Minutemen and the Boston College Eagles was anything but a battle. The Minutemen played poorly and the Eagles took advantage taking a 7-1 win and demoralizing the sold out crown at the Mullins Center Friday night. The Eagles got two goals quickly before Casey Wellman rang a shot off the post, the Eagles counter-attacked scored soon afterwards on a questionable goal in which the scoring player was in the crease long before the puck arrive, but the referees did not decide to call it back after viewing the replay. The only real chance for UMass to try and claw back was at the end of the first period, down 4-0, they had a ninety second 5-on-3 powerplay, but could not manage to get anything past Eagles goalie John Muse. After going down 7-0 in the second, James Marcou scored the only UMass goal late in the third, but clearly it was way too little way to late. The Minutemen are going to have to have very strong finish to the season to make up for the debacle Friday night, including a game at Boston College, if they want to make it to the NCAA tournament.  Next weekend they will have a home and home with Northeastern University.