HOUGHTON, Mich. – Despite a comeback effort, the Alaska Nanooks hockey team fell 5-2 to the Michigan Tech Huskies in a Western Collegiate Hockey Association contest at the MacInnes Student Ice Arena on Friday afternoon. The loss drops Alaska's overall record to 9-14-2 and 7-11-1-1 in conference play, while the Huskies improve to 11-9-5 on the season and 8-6-5-1 in league matchups.
Alaska's sophomore goaltender
Anton Martinsson registered a career-high 37 saves against the Huskies, making double-digit saves in each of the three regulation periods on Friday. On the other end of the ice, Michigan Tech's Devin Kero collected 29 saves, including 15 in the second period and 10 in the third.
The Michigan Tech Huskies opened up the scoring on Friday night, as Mitch Meek tallied an event-strength tally at the 7:05 mark of the first period.
Alaska evened up the score only 27 seconds into the second period with a power play goal by sophomore forward
Tyler Cline for his sixth goal of the season. Senior defenseman
Zach Frye rifled a shot from the blueline that sophomore forward
Kylar Hope got a stick on but it was Cline who cleaned up the rebound to make it 1-1. Cline's third power play goal of the season and his second in two games gives Hope his ninth apple of the year and Frye's 13th.
The third period saw a combined five goals, as Tech's Meek led things off with an even-strength goal for his second of the night at the 2:10 mark to make it 2-1. Ten minutes later, MTU's Raymond Brice scored the eventual-game winner at the 12:22 mark of the third stanza.
Not even a minute later, Alaska responded with a goal from junior forward
Chad Staley, who netted his third goal of the season to pull the Nooks to within one. Alaska won an offensive zone face-off to sophomore defenseman
James LaDouce, who fired the puck on net. Kero was able to make the initial save on LaDouce's shot and even rookie forward
Steven Jandric's attempt on the rebound but Staley crashed the net on the weak side to made it a 3-2 game.
Unfortunately for the Nooks, Tech's Mark Auk tallied a power play goal at the 14:25 mark of the third period to make it 4-2 before Thomas Beretta registered an empty-net goal at the 19:21 mark to seal the victory.
The Alaska Nanooks take on the Michigan Tech Huskies in WCHA action again tomorrow (Saturday, Jan. 20) at the MacInnes Student Ice Arena in Houghton at 3:07pm AKST.
For more information on the Alaska Nanooks hockey team, follow @NanooksHockey on Twitter or like the Alaska Nanooks Hockey team page on Facebook.
