The nation­ally No. 13-ranked Bulldog hockey team hosts No. 18 Nebraska-Omaha in a quar­ter­fi­nal matchup in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association Tournament this weekend.

The stakes are very high for the best-of-three series as the win­ner earns a trip to the semi­fi­nals at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.

Ferris earned the third seed in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA) and first-round bye in the con­fer­ence tour­na­ment with a 13−9−6−4 con­fer­ence record. The sixth-seeded Mavericks swept Bowling Green State with a pair of 6–1 vic­to­ries in Omaha in the open­ing round of the CCHA Tournament.

This marks the first home, quar­ter­fi­nal series for the Bulldogs since the 2002–2003 sea­son. Ferris will look to return the favor this year as the Mavericks swept the Bulldogs in the first round of the CCHA Tournament a sea­son ago.

Ferris swept the regular-season series with the Mavericks at home in the meet­ings as con­fer­ence foes as Nebraska-Omaha is leav­ing the CCHA after the season.

The home ice is typ­i­cally an advan­tage for the Bulldogs with the stu­dent sec­tion, the Dawg Pound, located behind the vis­it­ing team’s goal. However, stu­dents have not yet returned from spring break.

The Mavericks have the fourth-ranked offense in the CCHA with 3.08 goals per game while the Bulldogs are ranked fifth with 3.02 goals per game. Ferris is third in scor­ing defense, while Nebraska-Omaha ranks eighth.

Ferris senior left wing Blair Riley leads the Bulldogs with 34 points, 17 goals and 17 assists, while senior Eddie Del Grosso leads Nebraska-Omaha with 30 points.

The Bulldogs and Mavericks square off at 7:05 at Ewigleben Ice Arena on Friday.