ORONO — It wasn’t clean, but it was a sweep for the Maine men’s hockey team.

The Black Bears withstood a rash of penalties and a Merrimack goal that was disallowed, taking a 3-2 decision Saturday at Alfond Arena.

Devin Shore scored the winner on a blast from above the right circle with 28.4 seconds remaining to end an extremely physical game.

The testy tone was set in the first period, and Merrimack (7-18-3, 2-12-2 Hockey East) paid when Quinn Gould was whistled for interference after slamming into Maine goaltender Martin Ouellette. Seconds later, Ryan Lomberg fed a perfect diagonal pass to a cutting Ben Hutton, who tipped the puck into the net for a 1-0 lead at the 9:26 mark.

Merrimack tied the score 11:15 into the second period when Vinny Scotti emerged from a scrum at the blue line and skated in alone on Ouellette. He made one fake and then slid the puck beneath Ouellette for a goal.

But the Black Bears (15-10-3, 9-5-2) needed only 26 seconds to regain the lead on a Brice O’Connor slap shot.

A strange game turned truly bizarre late in the period when Warriors goaltender Sam Marotta crumpled to the ice and was called for a diving penalty. However, after being attended to for several minutes, he was escorted to the locker room with an apparent injury and replaced by Rasmus Tirronen.

Maine had four players in the penalty box at one time in the third period, and Merrimack converted a five-on-three advantage at 11:19 when Mike Collins scored from the slot. But he had another apparent goal one minute later waved off after video review.