BOSTON — UMass Lowell has once again emerged as a headliner at Hockey East’s annual March Garden party.

UML 5, Notre Dame 1

The River Hawks squeezed the life out of Notre Dame’s offense, consistently creating turnovers that resulted in scoring chances, while posting a convincing 5-1 victory over the Fighting Irish at the TD Garden in a Hockey East Tournament semifinal Friday night.

UMass Lowell (25-10-3) will play Boston University/Boston College in the HE final at the Garden Saturday at 7 p.m. The River Hawks are heading to the league championship game for the fifth straight season, winning the title in 2013 and 2014.

“I think the guys like playing here,” said UMass Lowell coach Norm Bazin, whose River Hawks are the No. 1 seed in the tourney. “It’s an exciting time of the year to be playing hockey.

“(Advancing to the title game again) shows a stability. It shows a consistency in the program. This year was probably the most brutal in terms of our regular season. It was very difficult to get here. We’re thrilled to be here. But we’ve been on both sides of this. We’ve lost two championship games and we’ve won two. We’d like to be on the side of the 2013 and 2014 teams.”

The “Baby Boomer” line of freshmen Colin O’Neill, Ryan Lohin and Kenny Hausinger led the way for UMass Lowell. Lohin paced the offense with a goal and 2 assists. O’Neill potted UMass Lowell’s first goal, while Hausinger notched 2 assists.

Freshman Nick Marin, junior C.J. Smith and senior Michael Kapla netted the other goals. Freshman defenseman Matti Goransson, Tyler Mueller, and Ryan Collins added 1 assist each. Freshman Tyler Wall made 19 saves in goal.

“It’s definitely exciting,” said River Hawk senior forward Joe Gambardella, who had an assist. “We’re very pleased to advance to tomorrow. We’re very fortunate that our whole class has been here the last four years. But our job is not done. We still have work to do tomorrow.”

All told UMass Lowell’s freshman class accounted for 8 points.

“It’s definitely awesome anytime anybody can contribute at this point in the season,” said Gambardella. We don’t consider the freshmen to be freshmen at this point. It’s a good class. They’re basically sophomores at this point. They’ve done really well producing for us all season.”

There certainly wasn’t much luck for the Irish on this St. Patrick’s Day. The win improved UMass Lowell’s record to 9-2-2 against Notre Dame, which is heading to the Big Ten next season, on Bazin’s watch.

“It’s just familiar territory,” said ND coach Jeff Jackson, whose Irish are in their fourth and final season in HE. “UMass Lowell is a great team and they certainly have our number. They have ever since we started playing them. Same thing tonight.

“They create a lot of pressure and (that caused) us to make bad decisions. We were our own worse enemy. We had a lot of turnovers in key areas of the ice … But you have to give Lowell their due. They created a lot of those situations.”

ND (21-11-5) actually took a 1-0 lead when a long-range bad bounce goal by Jack Jenkins skipped past Wall 7 minutes into the first period.

But the Rivers Hawks didn’t waste any time in responding as O’Neill evened the score at 7:25. UMass Lowell took a 2-1 lead on Lohin’s goal at 9:31.

Second period goals by Smith and Kapla upped the lead to 4-1. Marin completed the scoring at 2:58 of the final period.

“The guys responded to that fluky first goal,” said Bazin. “I thought we kept the traffic up for most of the game and we were fortunate enough to get ahead of it . . . For the most part we were able to carry the play And in the third period I was really proud at how we managed the game.”

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