Michigan Tech fell 3-2 in overtime to No. 6 Minnesota State Saturday (Feb. 9) at the John MacInnes Student Ice Arena. The Mavericks captured the MacInnes Memorial Cup as Winter Carnival Champions, and Marc Michaelis was named the weekend MVP with two goals and an assist.
“I thought our guys played hard,” Tech coach Joe Shawhan said. “It was the effort we’ve been asking for a long time. Mankato showed how to come out on top both nights and good teams do that.”
The Huskies jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the second period both on redirects in front of the net on the power play. Dylan Steman tipped in his fourth of the year from Keegan Ford and Brian Halonen 8:32 into the second.
Justin Misiak added to the lead at the 17:58 mark for his fifth of the year. Seamus Donohue and Thomas Beretta assisted.
MSU (24-6-2, 19-4-1 WCHA) drew to within one before the end of the second when Michaelis tipped in a shot by Parker Tuomie on the power play. Ian Scheid also assisted on the goal with 52 seconds left before the second intermission.
Tech (12-14-4, 11-8-3-1 WCHA) was called for a 5:00 major with 5:44 remaining in the third. Michaelis capitalized again as he cleaned up a rebound with assists again going to Scheid and Tuomie with 4:43 left.
Connor Mackey scored the game-winning goal 1:45 into overtime when he redirected a pass by Charlie Gerard into the back of the net. Michaelis had the secondary assist.
The Houghton Tech outshot MSU 35-27. Dryden McKay had 33 saves for the Mavericks.
Matt Jurusik stopped 24 shots in his fourth straight start—all four games have gone to overtime. Jurusik holds a .961 save percentage and a 0.95 goals-against average over the span.
“Goaltending was tremendous again tonight,” added Shawhan. “It’s been good all year and is a strong point for our team.”
Tech travels across the Upper Peninsula to play at Lake Superior State next weekend (Feb. 15-16) for the final road series of the regular season.
“We’ve been battling hard in practice, and I think that showed this weekend,” Captain Dylan Steman said. “We have to continue to have good practices, and we need to clean up how we play at the end of the game.”
The puck drops at 7:07 p.m. each night from Taffy Abel Arena.
