Friday night, those struggles continued.

Heading into the final period, UMass led 3-2 courtesy of a pair of goals from Shane Walsh and Frank Vatrano. That would be the last lead the Minutemen would see.

Four goals from Notre Dame in the opening eight minutes of the final period left the Minutemen (4-10, 1-8 Hockey East Association) stunned in a 7-5 loss Friday night at the Mullins Center.

Goals from Mario Lucia, Jordan Gross, Peter Schneider, and Luke Ripley gave the Fighting Irish (7-8-2, 3-2-2 HEA) a three-goal lead with 12 minutes, 21 seconds left in the game.

UMass coach John Micheletto saw many positives from his team on the night, but also many things that didn’t go his team’s way, calling it an “interesting college hockey game.”

“Obviously up a goal in the third and they scored in the first shift, and we kind of got back onto our heels and would’ve liked for us to get back out over our toes quicker than we did, and we didn’t,” Micheletto said.

“I appreciated the fact that we stuck with them and drew it close late, but we can’t have those swings where we get flat and on our heels.”

With the score 6-3 and time winding down in the third, Anthony Petrella scored his first collegiate goal to cut Notre Dame’s lead to two with just under three minutes to go. One minute, 17 seconds later, captain Troy Power recorded his third goal of the season, bringing the Minutemen to within one with 1:32 left in the game.

But the comeback fell short, with Schneider scoring an empty-net goal to seal the deal for the Irish.

With this game in the books, UMass has now been outscored by opponents an astonishing 31-15 in the third period. For Micheletto, this is a trend that must change, especially at home.

“When you’re losing games, you’re trying to address the issues that happen,” he said. “It’s happened three times, unfortunately all at home. We’ve certainly held leads before and played from behind very well, unfortunately this was not one of those nights.”

With Ray Pigozzi day-to-day with an upper body injury, it was Shane Walsh who was placed on a line with Vatrano and Steven Iacobellis. Walsh was able to contribute, recording a goal in the second period that gave the Minutemen a 2-1 lead.

“Shane’s giving us good minutes this year,” Micheletto said. “In the middle, prior to tonight, then on short notice we move him back over to the wing after playing in the middle which is sometimes difficult without a couple days of practice.

“I thought he did a good job and gave us good energy and speed tonight.”

On that same line, Vatrano scored two goals, giving him seven on the season. He has now recorded a goal in three straight games, and has tallied a point in eight of the team’s last 10 contests.

Micheletto believes the redshirt sophomore is beginning to become the offensive threat that he is known to be.

“Frank played very well. I think he’s scratching the surface of what he can be, and he’s on a good trajectory right now,” he said. “I know that line was minus on the night, but that was again a factor of not being able to get out of the zone at times.

“We’re gonna continue to invest in those guys.”

For Notre Dame, it was a balanced offensive attack that led to the victory, with six different players contributing a goal. Irish coach Jeff Jackson attributed his team’s offensive outburst to reuniting certain guys on lines.

“If you look at our stat sheet, we don’t have one guy that’s way ahead in scoring,” Jackson said. “We have several guys that have the ability to finish. Chemistry on lines is always a factor, and we haven’t had a lot of that in our lines.”

The two teams will not have a lot of time to think about this game, with game two of the weekend series set for Saturday night at 7 p.m. at the Mullins Center.

Jason Kates can be reached at [email protected] and followed @Jason_Kates.