Boxscore

WORCESTER, Mass.--The Western New England University men's hockey team's season came to an end on Tuesday afternoon after a heartbreaking 3-2 loss in overtime at Becker College. Senior Alan Martin and junior Andrew Cramer scored for the visiting Golden Bears, who finish 10-14-1 overall and 4-9-1 in the Eastern College Athletic Conference Northeast. The Hawks, who avenge a 5-4 overtime defeat in Springfield way back on Nov. 9, end up 3-18-3 and 2-9-3.

To qualify for the sixth and final playoff berth in the ECAC Northeast Championship Tournament, WNE needed to beat Becker and hope that Curry loses at Johnson & Wales later tonight. But the Colonels--already up one point over the Golden Bears in the conference standings heading into today's games--have now clinched a postseason spot.

Three Becker skaters scored one goal and had an assist each, including Nickolas McKee who tallied the game-winner in the 5-minute sudden-death extra session.

Martin, this week's co-player of the week in the ECAC Northeast, gave the Golden Bears a 1-0 lead just 4 minutes and 56 seconds after the opening face-off. He scored his ninth of the season on the power play with a feed from classmate Cam Napolitan.

Things got even more promising for WNE as Cramer's second goal of the year put the Golden Bears up 2-0 just 29 seconds later. Juniors Matt Dore and Nick Diorio assisted on the play.

Becker scored twice in the middle stanza to knot it at 2-all. Francis Musick cut the deficit in half at the 12:06 mark and Tyler Auricchio netted a power-play goal with only 33 seconds left.

Neither team found the back of the net in the third period although WNE had the edge with 13 shots on goal to nine for the Hawks. For the game, WNE outshot Becker by a 49 to 41 count.

Becker goalie Shaun Millerick made 47 saves to chalk up his first victory in four starts. Junior Tim Carr (4-4-1) had 38 stops in the WNE cage.

Notes: Becker Athletics incorrectly posted WNE as winning 3-2 in OT on its own website and D3hockey.com; WNEGoldenBears.com apologizes for posting that information before the error was discovered...2014 is the winningest senior class for the Golden Bears--43 wins--in nearly two decades...Cam Napolitan appeared in his 100th career game today, which is the most on the active roster...seniors Dan Monahan and Rance Vukovic both played in their 99th game in a WNE sweater...senior captain Brian Prost led the Golden Bears with 12 goals and 23 points this season to push his career totals to 33 goals and 53 assists for 86 points in 97 contests...senior assistant captain John Kelly winds up 2014 with a career-best 14 assists to lead the team.