PAPILLION , NE – The first round of the Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA) Tournament got underway Friday night with the bottom eight teams meeting in the preliminary rounds.
Games were played on the campuses of the higher four seeds in a best-of-three series. On Saturday night, each school played the second game of the series with a third game to be played Sunday on an “if necessary” basis. The four winners of each series will then be re-seeded 5-8 and will travel to the top four teams receiving first round byes. Those teams are: Notre Dame, Michigan, Miami (OH), and Alaska. The following is a review of this past weekends opening round games #12 Bowling Green at #5 Ohio St. Bowling Green looked to make this series interesting from the start, narrowly losing buy a score of 5-4 on Friday night. Several scoring chances by the Falcons were deflected away from the net as Ohio St. held on for the win on Friday night to take a 1-0 series lead. Goals: OSU – Elkins, Belanger, Toy, Reed, Boyd; BGSU – Bailen, Dee (2), Sexton Goalies: Carlson (W, 32/36), Spratt (L, 24/29) Saturday night was the Corey Elkins show. Elkins led the Buckeyes with his hat trick, while Dustin Carlson made 28 of 29 saves in net. Unfortunately for Bowling Green, there was not enough left in the tank and were routed 7-1. Goals: OSU – Somma, Elkins (3), Batrkowski, Sims, Picard; BGSU – Bailen Goalies: Carlson (W, 28/29), Spratt (L, 18/23), Eno (4/6) Ohio St. wins the series 2 games to 0 #11 Michigan St. at #6 Northern Michigan The Wildcats of Northern Michigan took to the ice against Michigan St. in a best of three series. With another close Friday night matchup, Northern Michigan was able to nip the lowly Spartans 5-3. Goals: NMU – Lindemulder, Gron, Olver, Smith, Gustafsson; MSU – Perlini, Kivisto, Leveille Goalies: Stewart (W, 18/21), Lerg (L, 24/29) On Saturday night, the Wildcats exploded for a season high eight goals expelling the Spartans from the hockey season with a win of 8-2. Northern Michigan played text book hockey by playing very disciplined and received only one penalty in the game and spread the goal scoring around by seven different Wildcats. The lone bright point for Michigan St. came from Dustin Gazley who netted two goals. Goals: NMU – Hanson, Sirota, Lindemulder, Kaunisto, Olver, Brown, Fox; MSU – Gazley (2) Goalies: Stewart (W, 20/22), Lerg (L, 21/29) Northern Michigan wins 2 games to 0 #10 Lake Superior St. at #7 Western Michigan On Friday night, Lake Superior St. exploded for five goals in 22 minutes placing Western Michigan into a corner almost immediately. While the Broncos would fight back with three goals, it would not be enough as the Lakers went on to win 6-3. Goals: LSSU – Perkovich (2), Schwab, Cowie, Cassiani, Cooper; WMU – Crew, Connauton, Galivan Goalies: Mahoney-Wilson (W, 39/42), Gill (L, 21/27), Kuhn (12/12) On Saturday night, Lake Superior St. looked to play spoiler and found them down a goal with 2:30 left in the game when Matt Cowie scored to tie the game at 3-3. At 7:57 in the second overtime, Kevin Connauton scored the game winning goal giving Western Michigan the victory thus ruining the Lakers opportunity for the upset. Goals: LSSU – Barczuk, Perkovich, Cowie; WMU – Squires, Connauton (2), Katz Goalies: Gill (W, 54/57), Mahoney-Wilson (L, 41/45) Sunday night featured the only Game Three in the first round of the CCHA playoffs. Tyler Ludwig scored the opening goal for Western Michigan only to see the game tied a few minutes later by Nathan Perkovich of Lake Superior St. Western Michigan finally took a deciding control in the second period scoring two unanswered goals giving them a 3-1 victory and the deciding game of the best-of-three series. Goals: LSSU – Perkovich; WMU – Ludwig, O’Kane, Crew Goalies: Gill (W, 29/30), Inglis (L, 25/28) Western Michigan wins the series 2 games to 1 #9 Ferris St. at #8 Nebraska-Omaha On Friday night, the Bulldogs came out flat against the host Mavericks who were on a 14 game winless streak. After a hard fought scoreless first period, Alex Hudson opened up the scoring for Nebraska-Omaha and gave the Mavericks all the points they would need as Ferris St. was shut out 3-0. Nebraska-Omaha goalie Jerad Kaufmann made 24 saves for the shut out. Goals: UNO – Hudson, Platisha, Ambroz
Goalies: Kaufmann (W, 24/24), Nelson (L, 29/32) On Saturday night, the Mavericks looked to begin a winning streak and went to work in a tough physical game. Ferris State, a tough physical team, forced the Mavs to play their game for a short while before succumbing to Nebraska-Omaha by a score of 5-2. Bulldogs leftwing Brendan Connelly had two goals in the losing effort. Goals: UNO – Ambroz, Martin (2), Koehler, Del Grosso; FSU – Connolly (2) Goalies: Kaufmann (W, 18/20), Nagle (L, 30/35) Nebraska-Omaha wins the series 2 games to 0 With the first round out of the way, we look ahead to the Second Round of the CCHA Playoffs. #8 Nebraska-Omaha at #1 Notre Dame The Mavericks will look to avenge a sweep in Omaha just three weeks ago when the Irish one Friday in overtime and Saturday by a score of 1-0. Notre Dame has been solid all season and will continue their march towards the elusive National Championship. # 7 Western Michigan at #2 Michigan The Broncos will travel to Ann Arbor to face the second seed Wolverines. The two teams split a home and home series earlier this season with the visitor winning each match up. Western Michigan is coming off the only first round series to go the distance of three games while the Wolverines have had a bye week. #6 Northern Michigan at #3 Miami The Wildcats travel to Oxford this weekend in hopes of finally beating the RedHawks this season. Miami has managed to edge Northern Michigan twice this season, completing the season series sweep. Expect nothing short of a well fought hockey game from these two teams as the both try to make it to Joe Louis in Detroit for the conference finals. #5 Ohio St. at #4 Alaska Ohio St. cruised through the first round and now gets rewarded with the worst road trip in all of hockey. The Buckeyes will travel to Fairbanks, Alaska and try to win two games from the #4 Nanooks who split in Columbus earlier this season. This should be one of the best matchups in the CCHA tournament. Contact the author at John.Strathman@prohockeynews.com
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