CHESTNUT HILL, MASS- Last year Boston College and Vermont met in the Hockey East finals, with BC coming out with a convincing 4-0 victory. Tonight with new teams and new faces, BC still came out on top, but by the slimmest of margins, one goal in a 3-2 victory.

After a sluggish first period from both sides, which saw 11 total shots on goal, the two teams combined for 53 shots the rest of the way, with BC getting the upper hand 29-25. Both BC goaltender John Muse and Vermont goaltender Mike Spillane played very well in net.

Both head coaches made a statement for their goaltending tonight, as both were very strong.

“Johnny Muse I thought was strong in goal,” said BC head coach Jerry York. “I thought he was very sharp. Vermont had good scoring chances too in the third.”

Said Vermont coach Kevin Sneddon, “I think he was great. I know he feels bad about the third when it was a great shot by Andrew Orpik. But, overall I thought he was sensational, he kept us in the game early on.”

With a tough battle tonight, Andrew Orpik got a key goal in the third period that made it 3-1. That was needed when Brian Roloff scored with an extra attacker late in the game for Vermont, to make it a 3-2 final.

“Every year we are bringing a different team to the table,” Orpik stated. “More so this year than in years past we rely on our freshmen. You look at Jimmy Hayes and Cam Atkinson and they’re getting ice time out there. Guys are playing vital minutes for us.

“Yes we have a lot of guys returning for us, but, at the same time our freshmen are being a big part of the team and we’re relying them to gather some big minutes for us.”

The Cats had their chances late in the game, however, early on, it wasn’t so. Only two shots on goal in the first for the Cats and Sneddon emphasized that after the game.

“I told the team there is a lesson to be learned in this game in a tough loss,” Sneddon replied. “I thought we played a great game for 20 minutes and that was the third period. I thought we did some great things, had some great scoring chances.

“You can’t play a team [as good as Boston College] for 20 minutes. I thought we played with a great sence of urgency when we were down 2-0 and when we were down 3-1. We needed to play with that sense of urgency right from the start. I thought we got better in the third period but it was too late.”

Even when scoring in the second period, Sneddon thought they could’ve done a little better. The team was outshot 15-10, but created some great chances in the second half of the period.

“We still didn’t hit stride until the third period,” said Sneddon. “We had spirts of play throughout the first two periods, but a solid period we did not have.”

Vermont gets the team from the other side of Commonwealth Avenue, the Boston University Terriers, next Saturday night in Burlington.