Friday nights battle at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center was heavy tilted toward the home team when the final buzzer went off. The Huskies are still undefeated on home ice this season after taking down the #10 ranked Western Michigan Broncos by a score of 3-0.

The game was extremely close to start with shots at 6 a piece after one period and no goals yet tallied. The second was a completely different story with the Huskies junior forward Nick Poehling burring his second goal of the year.

The freshman picked up the slack at 10:40 of the second period when Micah Miller picked up his first collegiate goal of his career. Miller has been a scorer his entire hockey career and finally gets the monkey off his back at the start of the second half for these Huskies.

The sealing goal was an empty netter from center ice by junior Jack Poehling with less then two minutes left.

The Broncos came in as the 4th ranked team offense in the country were stimied by sophomore David Hrenak and the Huskies defense. They were only able to muster 23 shots on net which a cramping Hrenak saved all of. This was the only time Western Michigan has been shut out this season.

Saturday night was a different story. The shots were way in favor of St. Cloud after the first period as they led 13-6.

Western Michigan struck for the first time this weekend when Dawson Dipietro caught a pass behind the net and went around faster then Hrenak was ready for and just slid it right in the five-hole to put the Broncos up 1-0 8:55 into the second period and that was the score going into the second.

The period ended as Broncos coach Andy Murray was giving the refs the business and trying to plead his case on some calls that may not have gone the Broncos way.

The second was a show of offensive firepower for the home club as the Huskies netted four unanswered goals. It started right out of the gate when junior forward Blake Lizotte finally scored less than a minute in after being stuffed on multiple grade A chances on Friday.

The Huskies picked it up again for goal number two when sophomore forward Easton Brodzinski tipped a Jimmy Schuldt shot from the point behind the Broncos goalie and gets into double digits on the season with his 10th goal. The fantastic freshman Miller jumped in on the fun with the second goal of the weekend and his college career.

The fourth goal of the period for the Huskies was in the final minute when another freshman forward Nolan Walker caught a puck on a broken play in the slot and swung it around to the far post with just enough room to bank it in the net.

The Broncos needed to come out with strong play on the offensive end to start the third and they just were not up to the task. They finally broke through after a whole 12 minutes of play when senior Jade McMullen scored to put the score at 4-2.

The Huskies iced the game with an empty net goal when do it all forward Jack Poehling played catch with his brother Ryan until he ripped it right off the post and in.

The Broncos were able to net one more by junior Lawton Courtnall, leading to a final score of 5-3 in favor of the #2 team in the nation.

This really didn’t feel like a top 10 match up in the country with the Huskies dominating large portions of both games. The Huskies move up to #1 in the Pairwise ranking and with Massachusetts losing on Saturday they will gain more of a hold on the top spot across the board with a likely grab on the #1 spot in the coach’s poll.

St. Cloud will try to keep the momentum going into next weekend when they travel north to face rival North Dakota.

The games will be at 7:37 on Friday night and 7:07 on Saturday. The games will not be broadcast on KVSC. The next weekend on KVSC will be the following when the Miami RedHawks come to town on February 1 and 2.