FINAL SCORE: No. 16 Vermont 2, No. 11 Boston College 2
CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. – Brian Bowen answered a pair of one-goal leads for No. 11 Boston College and finished with a four-point weekend as 16th-ranked Vermont earned a 2-2 Hockey East tie with the Eagles on Saturday night at Conte Forum. Stefanos Lekkas made 30 saves as the teams split the four points on the weekend.
 
UVM pushed its record to 17-10-5 (9-7-4 HEA) and retained sixth place in the standings with one weekend left in the regular season. Boston College moved to 18-12-5 (13-4-3 HEA) and holds a two-point cushion atop the league.
 
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Vermont (22 points) clinched at least home ice in the Hockey East first round. UVM has a two-point lead on its final regular season opponent Merrimack and trails fifth-place Providence by just one point. The Catamounts are three points behind UMass Lowell for the fourth and final first round bye. 

"Mostly tonight it was responding after the first BC goal," said head coach Kevin Sneddon. "It was kind of a harmless shot but Stef was outstanding from that point on. He showed great resilience and the team, even down 2-1 just into the third, had a good answer overall. We had a good answer to everything they did all weekend. It felt like the playoffs and we certainly gained a lot of valuable experience."

BC opened the scoring just 2:09 into the contest as rookie Julius Mattila wristed a shot short side high to beat Lekkas from the left wing circle.
 
Lekkas made back-to-back saves on Austin Cangelosi and Ryan Fitzgerald from the top of the crease midway through the second to keep the deficit at one.
 
That led to Bowen's first of the night at 13:27 as Trey Phillips sent Derek Lodermeier a pass into the offensive zone. Lodermeier cut across the middle and dropped a pass to a streaking Bowen, who circled around the net and buried a wrap-around at the left post to tie the game for the Catamounts.

Bowen closed the second period by ringing the underside of the crossbar from the right wing with two seconds on the clock. 
 
Just 41 seconds into the third, Boston College set up on its second power play of the night and Matthew Gaudreau found Colin White in the high slot. White turned and fired a shot that deflected past Lekkas low glove side off the stick of Cangelosi.
 
The Catamounts erased BC's advantage again less than two minutes later as Mario Puskarich fired a left wing shot on net with the rebound kicking out toward the corner. Bowen located the puck along the left goal line and ripped a shot off Joseph Woll (29 saves) inside the near post. The goal gave Bowen a team-high 11 as he became the fifth UVM player this season to post multiple two-goal games. Colton collected his team-high 25th point with the second assist.

The Eagles had most of the offensive pressure in overtime but Lekkas shut the door to preserve another point. Bowen registered Vermont's 13th total multi-goal performance of the season and has 14 points in his last 12 games. 
 
Next weekend, Vermont closes the regular season in Burlington against the surging Merrimack Warriors for Senior Weekend on Friday, Feb. 24 and Saturday, Feb. 25 at 7:05 p.m. Tickets are available by logging on to UVMathletics.com/Tickets or by calling 802-656-4410. 

Friday is Green Out The Gut Night presented by Casella Waste Systems and fans are encouraged to wear green. Saturday is Senior Night at Gutterson Fieldhouse as the Catamounts honor the 10 members of their senior class before the game.

Handy Toyota is the presenting sponsor of the 2016-17 men's hockey season