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SWEEP! Men's Hockey Earns Four Points at Kohl Center

02/05/2012 - 7:07 PM

For the first time of the 2011-12 season, the St. Cloud State Men's Hockey team pulled out the brooms with a weekend sweep of the Wisconsin Badgers from the Kohl Center. Despite not being able to ice a full roster and playing with sick and banged up players, the Huskies prevailed by a score of 5-1 Friday and 2-1 Saturday.

Ben Hanowski lead the way for St. Cloud State. After scoring all three goals for SCSU in the Minnesota series, Hanowski continued right where he left off, notching the first two goals of Friday's game. David Eddy, Nic Dowd, and Jared Festler also scored and Mike Lee stopped 31 shots for his first win since returning from hip surgery.

The Huskies played most of Friday's game and all of Saturday's game without forward Nick Oliver who was injured in the first period of the 5-1 win when he was hit with an open ice check by John Ramage of Wisconsin. Ramage was ejected from the game and received a major penalty.

Saturday saw SCSU trailing 1-0, when Dowd notched a goal :57 seconds into the third period to tie the game for SCSU. Wisconsin had multiple chances, but Lee was strong, kicking aside 41 shots, and only surrendering a second period powerplay goal.

Jarrod Rabey scored the game winning goal for the Huskies with five minutes remaining in the game. In front of family and friends, Rabey darted down the left wing and fired a backhander that eluded Wisconsin goalie Landon Peterson and earned the Huskies the win.

The sweep is the first for SCSU since they won both games versus Wisconsin at the National Hockey Center on February 25-26, 2011. The sweep at Wisconsin is also only the second in SCSU history.

St. Cloud now is one point back of fifth place in the WCHA. The Huskies are off this week, but return to action next weekend at home against Alaska Anchorage.