BU finally KO's Maine

Eagles up next in Hockey East semis

Defeat would have been hard to swallow, but Kieran Millan (31) and BU managed to oust Kevin Swallow and Maine. (Justine Hunt/Globe Staff)

Jack Parker was far from pleased by the way his team played the first two games of its best-of-three Hockey East quarterfinal against Maine despite splitting the first two outings. Boston University's coach was interested to see how his squad would respond in last night's deciding contest.

The answer? The top-ranked Terriers stormed to a 6-2 victory in front of 3,642 at Agganis Arena, becoming the first team in conference history to make it to the semifinal round for eight straight seasons. No. 1 BU will face Boston College Friday at the TD Banknorth Garden. Second seed Northeastern will take on UMass-Lowell.

Parker was pleased for the most part, although BU's power play - which went 1 for 19 in the series while Maine cashed in on 6 of its 15 chances - was 0 for 6 last night.

"The absolutely only negative was our inability on the power play," said Parker. "We've got to get that straightened out. It's amazing we got six goals without a power-play goal. I thought a lot of guys played real well. We certainly weren't up for the test this weekend until tonight and I was glad to see how we responded. Now it's on to the Garden and it's nice to get there."

BU (29-6-4) tried to set the tone early and scored less than a minute in. John McCarthy relayed a pass to Brandon Yip at the left point. Yip dished it over to Colby Cohen in the right circle and Cohen snapped a shot past freshman netminder Scott Darling at the 58-second mark for the 1-0 lead.

Both teams came out with a great deal of intensity and were very physical, moreso than either squad had been in the first two games of the series - particularly BU.

Maine had a chance to tie it during a BU power play when the Terriers gave up a pair of two-on-ones but the Black Bears couldn't capitalize. They came close to a goal at 12:19 when Jeff Dimmen took a shot from the slot. Goalie Kieran Millan came out to cut down the angle and the puck trickled under him but Cohen swooped in and, with the puck on the goal line, kicked it away with his left skate.

Exactly two minutes later, though, the Black Bears tied it up with one second remaining on a power play. Spencer Abbott beat Millan from deep in the left circle.

But BU erupted for a pair of goals scored 29 seconds apart to take a 3-1 lead. Yip cashed in a rebound of a shot by Nick Bonino at 16:05 and Joe Pereira redirected David Warsofsky's blast from the left point past Darling at 16:43.

The Terriers added three more in the middle period. Chris Connolly set up fellow freshman Corey Trivino with a pass from the right circle and Trivino drove down the slot before beating Darling through the pads at 9:13. Matt Gilroy set up the fifth tally when he sent a long lead pass to Zach Cohen, who finished off a two-on-one break with a shot from the left circle at 11:24. Goal No. 6 came with the teams skating four-on-four. Bonino stripped the puck from Brian Flynn and charged in alone on Darling, beating him at 15:04 to put the game out of reach.

Gustav Nyquist closed out the scoring at 17:20 of the third.

The Black Bears (13-22-4) needed a victory to prolong their season.

"We competed, we never quit, and we were very determined," said coach Tim Whitehead. "We certainly played right to the last whistle, which I'm very proud of. Obviously, we need to get a lot better as far as our talent level and we're working very hard to do that. There were a lot of positives there."

Nancy Marrapese-Burrell can be reached at marrapese@globe.com.