The St. Cloud State University Huskies handed Minnesota State Mankato their first loss of the season after defeating the Mavericks by a final score of 5-1. Four Huskies scored goals, with two coming off the stick of Ben Hanowski in the first period. Hanowski got the scoring started with a powerplay goal at the 7:34 mark of the first period which was his second goal of the season. Hanowski’s goal was assisted by Nic Dowd and Drew LeBlanc. The powerplay goal for Hanowski was only the third powerplay goal that the Huskies have had in 21 previous chances. Hanowski found the back of the net again seven minutes and fourteen seconds later to put the the Huskies up 2-0 with his third goal of the season and second of the period. But it only took thirty four more seconds for Dowd to score his third first period goal in as many games to give the Huskies a 3-0 lead after one period.

The second period brought no goals but a lot of penalties. Just one minute into the second frame, Mavericks forward Eriah Hayes was assessed a five minute major for charging against Hanowski, a play which ultimately kept Hanowski off the ice for the remainder of the game. Later in the second, Kevin Gravel was assessed a five minute major and a game misconduct for checking from behind about a minute after Ethan Prow went to the box for tripping. The Mavericks, however, were unable to score in the following 5 on 3 powerplay, and for the entire length of the major. The Mavericks thought they had scored, but after a review, the officials determined that SCSU goaltender Ryan Faragher was pushed into the net by a Minnesota State forward, and the goal was subsequently waived off.

The Huskies were able to pad their lead early in the third, when Finnish freshman Kalle Kossila scored a minute-twenty-three into the third, which gave the Huskies a 4-0 lead. Kossila’s goal was assisted by LeBlanc and Brooks Bertsch. Although it looked like the Mavericks were going to be kept off the board by Faragher, Evan Mosey was able to find the back of the net at 8:53 of the third period to cut the Huskies lead to 4-1. But the Huskies made sure they secured a victory in the final minute of the game when LeBlanc scored with only fourty-eight seconds left in the game to make it 5-1. The goal by LeBlanc was his fourth point of the game after assisting in three other SCSU goals.

The win for the Huskies brought them up over the .500 mark with a 3-2-0 record, and a 1-0-0 record after their first WCHA game of the year. The Huskies out-shot the Mavericks 28-25 int he game, despite being out shot in both the second and third periods. Ryan Faragher made 24 saves on the night to improve his record to 2-2-0 on the year, while MSU goaltender Phil Cook was handed his first loss of the young season and now has a 2-1-1 record. Attendance on the night was a rather disappointing 3, 901, although the SCSU student section was full to capacity. 

-Bryan Kangas