The nation­ally No. 13-ranked Bulldog hockey team is head­ing to Joe Louis Arena for the CCHA semi­fi­nals after sweep­ing No. 18 Nebraska-Omaha at home.

The vic­to­ries gave Ferris its first trip to the CCHA Championships since the 2002–2003 sea­son and a 12–0 record all-time in CCHA Tournament games at home.

After tak­ing the first con­test of the best-of-three, sec­ond round series by a score of 3–1 on Friday, Ferris senior left wing Casey Haines scored a game-winning, over­time goal on Saturday to give the Bulldogs a 3–2 vic­tory and a berth in the semifinals.

With a chance to clinch a CCHA Playoff Championship, Ferris head coach Bob Daniels said his team has its goal in sight.

“Our dri­ving force right now is to get to Joe Louis and see if we can come back with a cham­pi­onship,” said Daniels.

Ferris jumped on the board first in the deci­sive con­test when senior left wing Blair Riley net­ted his team-high 17^th goal of the sea­son only 3:21 into the first period.

The lead did not last for long though, as Nebraska-Omaha retal­i­ated with two goals in less than 17 sec­onds at the mid­way mark of the first period to erase the Ferris advantage.

Nebraska-Omaha main­tained the lead for the major­ity of the sec­ond period until Ferris senior cen­ter Aaron Lewicki posted a power-play goal with 6:25 left in the period to knot up the score at 2–2.

With the score tied, nei­ther team could find the net in the final period of reg­u­la­tion despite 12 shots on goal from Nebraska-Omaha and 11 by the Bulldogs, send­ing the match to sudden-death overtime.

With a chance to fin­ish off the series and pre­vent a deci­sive third game, the Bulldogs struck just 23 sec­onds into over­time when Haines fired a shot past Nebraska-Omaha goalie John Faulkner. The Bulldog bench fran­ti­cally ran onto the ice and smoth­ered Haines after his deci­sive goal.

“I was just try­ing to get the puck on net and I never saw it go in,” said Haines. “Once I saw the stu­dents jump, I took off towards cen­ter ice to celebrate.”

Riley tal­lied a goal and two assists for the Bulldogs and senior cap­tain Cody Chupp added two assists in their final con­tests at Ewigleben Ice Arena. The Bulldogs were 3 for 8 in power play oppor­tu­ni­ties in the series, while hold­ing Nebraska-Omaha to 0 for 6 in its power play chances.

With the series win, the Bulldogs will face either Northern Michigan or Ohio State in a semi­fi­nal matchup at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit on March 19, with a spot in the CCHA Championship on the line.

“We’ve got some work to do in prepa­ra­tion for the week­end at the Joe,” said Daniels. “But we’re going to try and come back with a championship.”