Gorham, ME-Southern Maine forward Amanda Shorey scored a power-play goal with 4:40 left in regulation to give the University of Southern Maine Huskies a hard-fought, 3-2 victory over the Castleton State College Spartans in an Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Women's East game Saturday afternoon at the USM Ice Arena.

The win was the second straight for the Huskies who improve to 6-14-1 overall and 6-8-1 in the league. The Spartans dropped their fifth straight game to fall to 5-12-3 overall and 4-8-3 in league play.

Deadlocked at 1-1 after two periods, USM took a 2-1 lead when senior Kelly Connors scored her second goal of the game, unassisted, at 1:35 of the third period.

The Huskies survived a rash of penalties over the next eight minutes, but hung onto the lead with some excellent penalty killing and outstanding goaltending from junior Emily Barrett.

The Spartans finally capitalized on their seventh power play of the period to get the equalizer at 14:21 as freshman Cassandra Koehne jammed in a rebound.

The tie lasted just 59 seconds. Shorey picked up a loose puck at the top of the right wing circle and beat Castleton goalie Vanessa Carter with a slap shot that appeared to change direction.

Southern Maine took an early 1-0 advantage as Connors scored just 89 seconds into the game off an assist from freshman Mary Vaughan.  Barrett made the lead stand up until midway through the second period before freshman Amy Costa scored a power-play goal, off an assist from Keohne, at 10:05.

Barrett finished the game with 32 saves while Carter stopped 19 shots before being lifted with 1:15 to play in favor of the extra attacker. Castleton had a 34-22 edge in shots on goal, including a 14-2 advantage in the second period.

Southern Maine goes on the road next weekend to play at league leader Saint Anselm College on Friday (7:00 p.m.) and the University of Massachusetts Boston on Saturday (1:00 p.m.).  Castleton will host Salve Regina University on Friday (7:00 p.m.) and M.I.T. on Saturday (3:00 p.m.).