LOWELL, Mass. - No. 16 Vermont skated to a 1-1 tie with UMass-Lowell in front of 6,121 at Tsongas Arena in Hockey East action on Saturday night. The Catamounts earned a spot in the Hockey East Quarterfinals with the tie and moved to 15-12-7 (9-11-7 HEA) on the season. Vermont is the No. 8 seed for the Hockey East playoffs and will meet top-seeded New Hampshire in a best-of-three series beginning next Friday at the Whittemore Center.

"I'm thrilled for our guys," Vermont head coach Kevin Sneddon said. "It's been a tough regular season for us. We've had a lot of ups and downs and they deserve to be playing in the postseason. I'm real happy for our seniors that this wasn't their last time playing."

Sophomore Rob Madore (Pittsburgh, Pa.) made 35 saves and was the game's "First Star." He stopped 13 of 14 Grade-A chances by the River Hawks.

"I thought it might have been his best game of the year," Sneddon said. "He's been giving us great minutes but he's been struggling with those one or two he might want back. We met about it and I put a challenge forward to him. He answered the call. He was phenomenal tonight."

Freshman Sebastian Stålberg gave Vermont a 1-0 lead with 1:09 left in the first period. Junior co-captain Kevin Miller (Los Angeles, Calif.) moved off the right half boards and fed Stålberg between the circles for his sixth goal of the season.

UMass-Lowell (18-14-4, 12-11-4 HEA) tied the game at one on Scott Campbell's 15th goal of the season at 7:27 of the second period. Senior assistant captain Jeremy Dehner feathered a diagonal pass to Campbell at the right post for the score on the backdoor.

Madore made 10 of his Grade-A stops in the second and had 15 saves in the period to keep the score tied going to the third period.
The Catamounts were out shot 9-4 in the third period and overtime. Freshman Chris McCarthy (Collegeville, Pa.) had the best chance for the Catamounts when he hit the post from the low slot with less than 5 minutes left in regulation.

Vermont went 0-for-1 on the power play while UML was 0-for-4. The River Hawks finished the regular season in fifth place in the Hockey East standings and will travel to fourth-seeded Maine next weekend for a best-of-three series.

NOTES: Carter Hutton finished with 17 saves for the River Hawks ... Lowell is unbeaten in seven straight games against Vermont ... The seven ties for the Catamounts match a program high that was previously set in 2007-08 ... Vermont is 0-1-7 in overtime on the season ... Sebastian Stålberg has 15 points in the last 18 games.

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