LOWELL, Mass. — Maine was 63 seconds away from having something to show for its gritty display of hockey Saturday night.

Michael Louria wiped it all away with an overtime goal that made No. 7 UMass-Lowell a 3-2 victor before an announced crowd of 4,497 at the Tsongas Center.

The Black Bears shuffled off the ice with an eighth straight defeat, three coming in overtime road games.

“It’s almost like someone died in there,” Maine freshman Nolan Vesey said of the mood in the locker room. “It just stinks. It’s never fun losing. I think we’re all sick and tired of it.”

Vesey’s first career goal, when he finished a nifty two-on-one break with fellow freshman Liam Pecararo, gave Maine (3-12-1, 2-6 Hockey East) a 2-1 lead 11:53 into the third period.

The River Hawks (10-3-3, 7-0-2) tied the score 32 seconds later when the puck bounced off Tyler Mueller’s abdomen and past Maine goaltender Sean Romeo.

“When we scored that goal, I thought we were going to keep the lead and maybe get the win,” Vesey said. “Liam made a good pass, and really my instinct kind of took over. I was going to bring it to the backhand, but I saw the goalie (Kevin Boyle) slide all the way over, so I just put it in on my forehand.”

The overtime session was played almost entirely in Maine’s end. UMass-Lowell fired three shots at Romeo that he saved. The third was by Louria from close range and ricocheted into the left corner. Evan Campbell cycled it back to Louria out front and he stuffed it in at 3:57.

“We got some bad shifts and we couldn’t get out of it,” Maine Coach Red Gendron said of overtime. “They just hemmed us in. And at other times during the game, we hemmed them in.”

Maine scored first at 19:05 of the second period on a power play. The Black Bears had gone scoreless in their previous 24 man advantages. But Ben Hutton took a shot from the point and Blaine Byron was the first player to get a stick on the rebound in a congested crease, poking it through Boyle’s legs.

“I thought we had a couple good chances. We definitely could have more goals” on the power play, Byron said. “The puck was moving well. We were creating those chances, which was good.

“That was a big goal going into the third period.”

The River Hawks, second in the nation at 3.8 goals per game coming in, brought added intensity to the third period with 14 shots on Romeo. A.J. White finally scored at 7:44 with a slap shot from the high slot.

“You hate losing a point like that. It was a battle. Giving up two in the third is always tough,” Byron said. “We might have been back on our heels a bit. They’re a good team. It’s such a short overtime and you’ve really got to bear down and make sure you’re solid defensively and capitalize on your chances.”

Maine generated no shots in overtime. But Gendron placed no fault on his players for their efforts.

“I wish we had made one more play to win. I wish we had made one less mistake to tie,” he said.

Instead, it was another agonizing loss for a team that has seen more than its share of those.