The St. Cloud State Men’s Hockey Team bounced back after a tough loss Friday night to beat 13th ranked Denver Pioneers five to one Saturday. The Huskies were led by sophomore defender Nick Jensen who gained his first collegiate hat trick and became the first SCSU defenseman since Bret Hedican to score three goals in a game. Hedican recorded his hat trick on February 15th, 1991.

Jensen opened the SCSU scoring effort just 34 seconds into the game by beating Denver goalie Juho Olkinuora with a slap shot. Jensen added the game winning goal at 13:04 of the first period with a power play goal to make it two to nothing Huskies. Denver broke the shutout at the 18:25 mark of the first period with a goal by Shawn Ostrow.

It was all Huskies after that as Jensen recorded his third goal just 21 seconds into the second period. Sophomore forward Cory Thorson made it a 4 to 1 game after netting a power play goal. Freshman forward Brooks Bertsch capped off the scoring for the Huskies as he scored at 10:17 of the third period. Denver outshot the Huskies 37 to 31 but it was the SCSU power play that made the difference, going two of five on the night. Freshman goalie Ryan Faragher made 36 saves in net for the Huskies and was named the number two star of the game.

The win snapped a six-game winless streak for the Huskies who look to gain some momentum when they face off with Western Michigan University on December 29th and 30th at the National Hockey Center.