Icers look to end regular season with sweep of Bowling Green

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The No. 12 MSU hockey team is trying to keep an even keel entering the final weekend of the regular season.

Sure, the Spartans are taking on second-to-last place Bowling Green, a team MSU swept earlier in the season. And if the Spartans can earn one point in the weekend series, they will secure a first-round bye and home-ice advantage in the second round of the CCHA Tournament.

But at this point, the worst thing the Spartans can do is overlook the Falcons.

“In college hockey, anything can happen,” said freshman defenseman Torey Krug, who tallied his first career — and game-winning goal — earlier this season against the Falcons. “You look in the standings and Bowling Green might be down there, but they’ve hurt some teams already this year. We really don’t want to go into the game underestimating our opponent.”

With how inconsistent MSU played last weekend against No. 14 Ferris State, MSU head coach Rick Comley is hoping his team comes out with more energy against Bowling Green, a team he said “gives everybody fits.”

MSU might only need one point to lock up a spot in the top four, but the Spartans need to keep accumulating wins to help their NCAA Tournament stock. Currently, the Spartans sit in 10th place in the Pairwise system, which the NCAA uses to select the teams for the 16-team NCAA Tournament.

So naturally, MSU doesn’t want to let Bowling Green play the role of spoiler.

“You always worry about a bubble breaking or hitting a bad stretch or getting bad breaks,” Comley said.

“That’s the nature of the game.”

The Falcons enter this weekend trying to hold on to their spot in 11th place in the CCHA standings, three points up on last-place Western Michigan.

Even with a sweep of MSU, Bowling Green couldn’t pass anyone in the conference standings.

But the Falcons enter the final series of the season on a high note, as they took five of six points from Notre Dame last weekend. It was the first time the Bowling Green seniors ever had defeated Notre Dame.

“We are feeling good, and we are a little bit loose,” Bowling Green head coach Dennis Williams said. “We haven’t had that a lot this season.”

MSU and Bowling Green squared off in the middle of December, with the Spartans posting a dominating 4-1 win at Munn Ice Arena before squeaking out an overtime victory at BGSU Ice Arena the following night.

That was the last time MSU earned a weekend sweep in conference play.

If the Spartans are going to enter the playoffs on a high note, they couldn’t have asked for a better opponent.

Bowling Green has the league’s worst scoring offense, averaging 2.03 goals a game, and the worst power play, converting at 12.1 percent.

MSU had dominated the all-time series, posting a 35-9-3 mark in East Lansing and a 24-17-5 record in Bowling Green.

But the Spartans’ last trip to BGSU Ice Arena was a challenge.

“Going down there, they play well in their building,” junior defenseman Jeff Petry said.

“They capitalized on our mistakes and we had to beat them in overtime. Nothing comes easy there.”

MSU seniors Nick Sucharski, Bobby Jarosz, Jay Sprague and Justin Johnston will be honored Friday during Senior Night.

The Falcons will host their Senior Night on Saturday when the series travels back to their barn. Puck drop is at 6:05 p.m. Friday and 7:05 p.m. Saturday.

With both games being Senior Night affairs, emotions are expected to run high for both teams.

“This season has gone way too fast,” Krug said. “I’ve been telling a couple of the other freshmen, we have to play for (the seniors) and for each other. This stuff goes way too fast, and it’s just going to go right by us.”

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