Wildcats fall 3-2 to BGSU
Courtesy of NMU Athletics
MARQUETTE, Mich. – The Northern Michigan University hockey team was edged 3-2 by Bowling Green State in their regular season home finale at the Berry Events Center Saturday.
With the loss the Wildcats fell to 13-19-2 overall with an 11-14-1 Western Collegiate Athletics Conference record. The Falcons improved to 14-14-6 with an 11-11-6 league mark.
Bowling Green jumped out to a 3-0 lead after scoring two goals in the first period and the first goal of the second.
Raffs Friebergs scored on an assist from Pierre Mercier at the 13:07 mark of the first period. Ryan Carpenter then scored on an assist from Kevin Dufor to give the Falcons a 2-0 advantage at the 17-minute mark of the first.
Mike Sullivan scored the third and final goal of the night for Bowling Green on assists from Sean Walker and Carpenter at the 1:33 mark of the second.
NMU then scored two goals just 15-seconds apart to cut the Bowling Green lead to 3-2.
Freshman forward John Siemer scored the first goal of the night for the Wildcats on assists from freshman forward Gerard Hanson and junior defenseman Mitch Jones at the 3:21 mark of the second. It was the seventh goal of the season for Siemer, the sixth assist for Hanson and 18th for Jones.
Senior forward Erik Higby then scored just 15-seconds later on assists from junior forward Ryan Daugherty and senior forward Stephan Vigier. It was the 11th goal of the season for Higby and the 11th and 13th assists for Daugherty and Vigier, respectively.
“I think as soon as they got their third goal for whatever reason we turned it on and from that point on it was pretty one sided,” said NMU head coach Walt Kyle. “It wasn’t that we were bad in the first they just scored on their chances and we didn’t. I have said this before about this team, if good things happen we can roll but sometimes we wait for good things to happen.”
NMU dominated the third period out shooting Bowling Green 15-3 but were unable to net the equalizer. The Wildcats outshot the Falcons 39-26 in the contest. NMU was 0-2 on the power play and 1-2 on the penalty kill.
Freshman goalie Mathias Dahlstrom (12-17-2) made 23 saves in 58:43 of action in net, taking the loss for the Wildcats. Tommy Burke (10-6-6) made 37 saves en route to the win for Bowling Green.
Prior to the game, Northern Michigan honored their departing seniors – C.J. Ludwig, Wade Epp, Austin Handley, Erik Higby, Jake Johnson, Nate Taurence and Stephan Vigier.
Northern Michigan wraps up regular season action with a two-game WCHA series at Alabama-Huntsville March 7 and 8. Puck drop for both nights is set for 8:07 p.m. EST.