Ice Hockey: Sophomore Michael Trebish (#23) and senior Cody Chupp (#8) stand ready for the face-off at a recent game. The Bulldogs ended the sea­son with a 21−13−6 over­all record, tying with the pre­vi­ous fourth place record for num­ber of wins by a Ferris State ice hockey team. Photo By: Kristyn Sonnenberg | Photo Editor

The Bulldogs dropped two close con­tests in the CCHA play­offs, ulti­mately cost­ing the team a berth in the NCAA Tournament.

After drop­ping an excit­ing 5–4 over­time semi­fi­nal con­test against then No. 12-ranked Northern Michigan on Friday, the nation­ally No. 8-ranked Bulldogs came out on the wrong end of a 2–1 loss against No. 2-ranked Miami (Ohio) in the third place game in the CCHA play­offs on Saturday.

With the two losses in the CCHA play­offs, the Bulldogs needed some help from Northern Michigan in hopes of claim­ing one of the at-large bids in the NCAA Tournament. Ferris needed NMU to beat Michigan in the CCHA Championship game to pre­vent Michigan from lock­ing up the auto­matic bid and win­ning the con­fer­ence tournament.

The Wolverines had other plans as they edged out the Wildcats 2–1 to earn the auto­matic bid for the NCAA Tournament, leav­ing the Bulldogs to sit and wait until the Selection Show on Sunday to learn their fate.

As the 16-team field was announced, Ferris was nowhere to be found on the bracket. The two losses in the CCHA play­offs ulti­mately cost the team a spot in the national tournament.

On the sea­son, the Bulldogs fin­ished the year with a 21−13−6 record and came in third in total points in the CCHA with 49 points, trail­ing only Michigan State and Miami.

Besides fin­ish­ing near the top of the CCHA in the reg­u­lar sea­son, Ferris also earned its first trip to Joe Louis Arena for the CCHA Championships since the 2002-03 sea­son, where the Bulldogs fell to Michigan 5–3 in the cham­pi­onship game. n