Ferris extends win­ning streak at home to 8–0 with sweep of Ohio State

The Ferris State hockey team is ranked 17^th in the nation accord­ing to U.S. College Hockey Online after sweep­ing the Ohio State Buckeyes at home.

The Bulldogs improved to 8–0 at home this sea­son, adding to two more vic­to­ries to the already school-record home start. Ferris has outscored its oppo­nents 39–16 in eight home con­tests this season.

The team is 9−3−2 over­all and 4−2−2−2 in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA). The team improved to third over­all in the CCHA with 16 points, behind only Miami and Michigan State. Ferris is unbeaten in its last six con­tests and has not lost since Oct. 31.

The Bulldogs dom­i­nated Ohio State in the opener on Friday night with an 8–1 vic­tory. Senior for­ward Blair Riley opened the scor­ing with a short­handed goal five min­utes into the game. The goal started a rally that resulted in three Bulldog goals in just three min­utes, 44 seconds.

Riley added two goals in the sec­ond period for his sec­ond career hat trick. Ferris scored seven goals through two peri­ods and the Buckeyes never recov­ered. Senior cap­tain Cody Chupp added a goal and two assists for the Bulldogs. Sophomore goalie Taylor Nelson stopped 20 of 21 shots and senior Jordan Barber stopped all six shots he faced in the third period.

The sec­ond game proved to be a dif­fer­ent story as the Bulldogs ral­lied from a three-goal deficit to defeat Ohio State in over­time. Ferris trailed by three goals on two sep­a­rate occa­sions, includ­ing 5–2 early in the third period. Chupp began the come­back with a power play goal and Riley scored six min­utes later.

Chupp tied the game with just 51 sec­onds remain­ing in the game to force over­time. Senior for­ward Casey Haines com­pleted the come­back on a game-winning goal with 22 sec­onds left in the over­time session.

One rea­son for the Bulldogs’ suc­cess is that they have the best offense in the CCHA, scor­ing 3.57 goals per game. The team has 50 goals through 14 games, which is eight more than Michigan State’s 42.

In addi­tion, Ferris has the top power play in the con­fer­ence, scor­ing 25.6 % of the time. The next clos­est is Northern Michigan with 20.8%. The team is also ranked sec­ond in penalty kill and fourth in scor­ing defense.

Next on the sched­ule is a home series against the University of Nebraska-Omaha, which is cur­rently ranked 19^th nation­ally. The Mavericks are 5−4−3 over­all and 2−4−2−1 in con­fer­ence play. Ferris went 2−1−1 last sea­son against the Mavericks, includ­ing the school’s first shootout vic­tory against a con­fer­ence oppo­nent in the final game of the series.

Nebraska-Omaha defeated Ferris in the first round of the CCHA play­offs last season.