The Bulldogs shocked the seem­ingly unbeat­able No. 1 nationally-ranked Miami (Ohio) RedHawks with two dra­matic vic­to­ries in a series sweep over the weekend.

Much prepa­ra­tion went into this series because of the com­pe­ti­tion and the oppor­tu­nity to poten­tially upset the top team in the country.

“I was very happy with the win and it meant a lot to the team because obvi­ously Miami has a ter­rific pro­gram,” said Ferris head coach Bob Daniels. “It meant a lit­tle bit more because it was Miami.”

The Bulldogs are now 5−3−2 over­all and 2−2−2 in the con­fer­ence. The Bulldogs have won both of their shootouts this sea­son and are fifth CCHA stand­ings. Miami dropped from first to third in the con­fer­ence stand­ings fol­low­ing the two losses.

Saturday evening, the Bulldogs come out with a 1–1 tie against Miami, but earned the extra point in the stand­ings with a 3–2 shootout vic­tory. Miami scored first in the game, but the Bulldogs would even the score just min­utes into the sec­ond period when sopho­more for­ward Kyle Bonis passed to fresh­man Cory Kane who scored his sec­ond goal of the year for Ferris.

The Bulldogs kept the RedHawks off the board for the reminder of the game despite being out­shot 37–19 in the con­test. After a score­less over­time, the teams headed to a shootout.

Bonis, along with juniors Derek Graham and Jordie Johnston, tal­lied goals in the shootout to give the Bulldogs a 3–2 shootout vic­tory. The shootout vic­tory marked the sec­ond such win this sea­son for Ferris, as the Bulldogs topped Michigan in a shootout on Oct. 29. Senior goal­tender Pat Nagle had 36 saves and received the received the first star of the game.

“I was real impressed with the seniors Henning, Redmond and Nagle,” said Daniels. “You’re going to need lead­ers and that was pro­vided by the senior class.”

The Bulldogs went into Saturday with the same strat­egy as before, not chang­ing much and hoped to con­tinue the way they had been play­ing all season.

“There isn’t much you can do in a 24 hour period, all the prepa­ra­tion went on dur­ing the week,” said Daniels. “We all watched films and fine-tuned dur­ing the morn­ing prac­tices. We preached that we needed more of the same.”

The Bulldogs upset the RedHawks 3–2 on Friday, which marked Miami’s first reg­u­la­tion con­fer­ence loss of the sea­son. The first goal was scored by Miami just 3:06 into the game, but Bulldog senior Mike Fillinger would score his first goal of the sea­son to knot up the score at 1–1 in the first period. With a lit­tle over one minute left to play in the first, Bonis tal­lied his fourth goal of the sea­son to give Ferris a 2–1 lead going into the sec­ond period.

The RedHawks knot­ted the game at 2–2 halfway through the sec­ond period, but the Bulldogs responded quickly. A play was set up by senior cap­tain Zach Redmond and senior Justin Menke, that ulti­mately resulted in sopho­more Matthew Kirzinger scor­ing the game-winning goal late in the sec­ond period. Nagle had 19 saves in the vic­tory and improved his league-leading goals against aver­age to 1.75 per game.

“We just had to play well defen­sively and try not to have any penal­ties at all,” said Daniels.

The Bulldogs went into Saturday with the same strat­egy as before, not chang­ing much and hop­ing to con­tinue on as they did previously.

“There isn’t much you can do in a 24 hour period, all the prepa­ra­tion went on dur­ing the week,” said Daniels. “We all watched films and fine-tuned dur­ing the morn­ing prac­tices. We preached that we needed more of the same.”

The Bulldogs will hit to the road this week­end to play Lake Superior State on Nov. 12–13 in Sault Ste. Marie.