St. Cloud State Men’s Hockey was in Kalamazoo to take on the Penrose Cup winning Western Michigan Broncos in the first round of the NCHC tournament.

Early on into Friday’s contest, it was the #5 team in the country scoring twice via Matteo Costantini to give the home team a two-goal lead. Shockingly, both of those goals came with Verner Miettinen sitting in the penalty box, who had only taken one penalty for the Huskies all season. That damage would be softened a bit with less than 30 seconds to go, as St. Cloud State captain Josh Luedtke scored to make it 2-1 heading into the first intermission.

Play would even out for a bit early on in the 2nd, but the barrage of shots from the Broncos would be rewarded as a bad bounce off of SCSU defensemen Josh Zinger ended up in Isak Posch’s net, giving Western Michigan a 3-1 lead. That goal would mark a point in the game where the physicality and tone shifted, as penalties would begin to be called left and right. The worst of it would come after a 4-on-4 stretch with Verner Miettinen being called for his 3rd penalty of the game, with this one resulting in a review for a major. It would stand as a 2 minute penalty, but with their fourth powerplay, Tim Washe would score to make it 4-1. Not one minute later Iiro Hakkarainen made it 5-1, which, mercifully would hold heading into the final break.

In the third period, it was SCSU looking for building blocks to take into tomorrow. Alex Bump would add a tally for Western and Verner Miettinen would add a goal for SCSU, but it was all elementary at the time. As the final horn sounded, it was SCSU being pushed to their elimination point by falling 6-2.

Up Next: Game two of the series between SCSU and WMU will take place at 5:00 p.m. CT tomorrow. Alexander Fern and Brian Moos will have your call on 88.1 FM, or online at kvsc.org.