The Ferris State hockey team secured a first-round bye in the CCHA Tournament for the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive sea­son with two road vic­to­ries over Ohio State.

The Bulldogs defeated the Buckeyes 3–1 on Friday night, secur­ing five of the six con­fer­ence points from the week­end series. The Bulldogs topped the Buckeyes 1–0 in a shootout on Thursday night after a 2–2 tie through reg­u­la­tion and overtime.

As a team, Ferris sur­ren­dered three goals in two games against the Buckeyes over the week­end, mark­ing the sixth con­fer­ence series in which the team has allowed three goals or fewer. The Bulldogs rank sec­ond in the nation in team defense, allow­ing 2.14 goals per game.

Hobey Baker Award can­di­date and senior Bulldog goalie Pat Nagle saved 43 of 46 shots he faced in the series. Nagle leads the nation with a 1.97 GAA and ranks 11^th nation­ally with a .924 save percentage.

With the wins, Ferris improved to 17−14−5 over­all and 12−12−4−3 in con­fer­ence play. The Bulldogs locked up at least fifth place in the CCHA stand­ings and will have a bye in the open­ing round of the CCHA Tournament.

Ferris is fourth in the stand­ings with 43 points, while Western Michigan has 41 points and is in fifth. The dif­fer­ence between the fourth and fifth seed is sig­nif­i­cant as the higher seeded team has home-ice advan­tage in the sec­ond round.

The Broncos play at Notre Dame at 7:05 p.m. tonight and can steal the fourth seed in the con­fer­ence tour­na­ment with a win. If the Broncos lose and Northern Michigan upsets Michigan at home, then the Wildcats would secure the fifth seed.

Ferris will either play Western Michigan or Northern Michigan in the sec­ond round of the tournament.