The Ferris men’s golf team enters the 2010 spring sea­son ranked No. 15 in the nation after win­ning three of five events dur­ing the fall.

Bulldog head coach Mike Mignano, in his third year with the team, said this is the most tal­ented team Ferris has ever had. The team fin­ished eighth at the NCAA-II Men’s Golf Championships a sea­son ago and is look­ing to crack the top five this season.

The Bulldogs are geared up to make another run at a national title. Mignano said every­thing the team does each day is based on the goal of win­ning a national championship.

“I think in gen­eral top five is good, but the guys won’t be happy unless they win it,” said Mignano.

Ferris never fin­ished out­side the top five in any event dur­ing the fall part of the sea­son. The Bulldogs’ worst result was at the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Championships where they fin­ished tied for fourth.

The team kicks off its spring part of the sea­son with the UC-San Diego Southern California Intercollegiate Tournament in Mission Viejo, Calif. March 22–23. Mignano said the 12-team field con­sists of six of the top 20 teams from nation­als last year, includ­ing 2009 national cham­pion Sonoma State (Calif.).

“Obviously we’re going out there with the goal of win­ning, but more impor­tantly we want to kind of see where we are at in the mix,” said Mignano.

The ros­ter is lit­tered with tal­ent and expe­ri­ence as the team sports four seniors, five juniors, and four sopho­mores. The team is led by seniors Kurt Valley and Eric Lilleboe. Senior Craig Burrows and juniors Joe Brown and Garrett Simons also had one or more top ten indi­vid­ual fin­ishes dur­ing the fall sea­son for the Bulldogs.

“Kurt Valley is with­out a doubt the hard­est work­ing guy on our team,” said Mignano. “He’s our cap­tain, he’s our leader and he def­i­nitely sets an exam­ple for every­body else.”

The Bulldogs will be hit­ting the road early in the sea­son as the first four tour­na­ments of the spring will be played in California, Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio. Lilleboe said the team is very deep and expects they will be in con­tention for a national title in May.

“Getting off to a good start early def­i­nitely helps us with con­fi­dence, but we would much rather end the year hot at region­als and nation­als,” said Lilleboe. n

The nation­ally No. 13-ranked Ferris hockey team shut down No. 18-ranked Nebraska-Omaha 3–1 in the first quar­ter­fi­nal game of the CCHA Tournament.

The Bulldogs lead the best-of-three play­off series 1–0 with another game to be played on Saturday. If Ferris wins, it will advance to the semi­fi­nals at Joe Louis Arena. If Nebraska-Omaha wins, the teams will play Sunday in a one-game, winner-take-all showdown.

Ferris improved to 11–0 all-time in home play­off con­tests. The Bulldogs have outscored the Mavericks 8–2 in three con­tests this season.

Bulldog junior goalie Pat Nagle stopped 33 of 34 shots in the game with the only Maverick goal com­ing in the final two minutes.

After a score­less first period, Ferris junior left wing Mike Embach opened the scor­ing 7:16 into the sec­ond period. Bulldog senior cen­ter Aaron Lewicki net­ted a power play goal with just over five min­utes left in the sec­ond to give Ferris a 2–0 lead.

Midway through the third period, Embach net­ted his sec­ond goal of the game on a power play to push the Bulldog lead to 3–0. Nebraska-Omaha scored with 1:23 left to avoid the shutout, but got no closer.

The Bulldogs went two for five on their power play oppor­tu­ni­ties, while lim­it­ing the Mavericks to zero for four on their power play chances.

Lewicki tal­lied a goal and an assist for the Bulldogs. Junior cen­ter Justin Menke and sopho­more defense­man Brett Wysopal added two assists each for Ferris in front of 862 spectators.

Miami (Ohio) topped Ohio State 6–2 and Northern Michigan snuck past Alaska 4–3 to take 1–0 leads in their series’. Michigan sur­prised Michigan State with a 5–1 vic­tory in East Lansing.

Ferris and Nebraska-Omaha bat­tle Saturday at 7:05 p.m. at Ewigleben Ice Arena.

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.

The Bulldogs’ Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Tournament run ended on March 5 with an 82–69 defeat at the hands of the Findlay Oilers.

Ferris trailed Findlay by nine points at the half, despite shoot­ing 60 per­cent from three-point range. The Bulldogs were down 53–41 with 13:21 left in the game, but trimmed the deficit to four points with less than seven min­utes to play. (more…)

The Ferris men’s bas­ket­ball team earned its first GLIAC Tournament vic­tory since the 2005–2006 sea­son with a win over Saginaw Valley State on Tuesday.

Ferris lost the two reg­u­lar sea­son meet­ings with the Cardinals, but won a defen­sive bat­tle 65–59 in University Center in the GLAIC Tournament Quarterfinals. The vic­tory marked the first win at Saginaw Valley since the 2006–2007 sea­son. (more…)

The Ferris women’s rugby team won the 16th Annual Snowball Tournament in Kalamazoo on Feb. 13 in com­mand­ing fashion.

Unlike tra­di­tional rugby matches, the con­tests were played on fields 30 yards long instead of 100 yards and played with 10 peo­ple instead of 15. The tour­na­ment was set up in a bracket style and each team was guar­an­teed to play at least three games.

Sophomore Andrea Dooley, a tele­vi­sion pro­duc­tion major from Grandville, said the Bulldogs were the only team to go 4–0 through­out the tour­na­ment. The Bulldogs defeated Wayne State, Saginaw Valley State, Central Michigan and Western Michigan. (more…)

As Ferris suits up to play their final reg­u­lar sea­son games Friday and Saturday night, the Bulldogs will still need to be aware of what may lie ahead of them in the CCHA post-season.

Miami locked up the No. 1 seed in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association two weeks ago, but the sec­ond through fourth seeds are still open.

Ferris State and Michigan State remained tied for sec­ond in the CCHA with 46 points after split­ting their series last week­end. The Bulldogs bat­tle Western Michigan in a home-and-home series and the Spartans play Bowling Green State in the final two games of the season.

Alaska is fourth in the con­fer­ence with 45 points and Nebraska-Omaha is fifth with 44 points. Nebraska-Omaha and Alaska have com­pleted their con­fer­ence sea­sons and can­not advance their posi­tions. Ferris can­not fin­ish worse than fifth or bet­ter than sec­ond in the CCHA stand­ings.
(more…)

Senior Alicia Thomas will start her pro­fes­sional career as an account exec­u­tive in the sales depart­ment with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Thomas, an adver­tis­ing major from Greenville, knew she wanted to work with a pro­fes­sional sports orga­ni­za­tion and her first choice was the Cavaliers due to their award-winning mar­ket­ing and sales team. (more…)

Ferris State University com­ple­ments its edu­ca­tion with job expe­ri­ence oppor­tu­ni­ties not often found at over­sized universities.

Any col­lege stu­dent under­stands that high grades are valu­able toward attain­ing a desir­able job upon grad­u­a­tion. Academics are not the only attribute employ­ers are look­ing for, how­ever. An intern­ship or work expe­ri­ence of some kind is more often than not what sets one stu­dent apart from another. (more…)

The 2010 Winter Olympic Olympics began with a trib­ute to 21-year-old luge racer Nodar Kumaritashvili, who died in a train­ing crash on Feb. 12.

A native of the Republic of Georgia, Kumaritashvili was trav­el­ing 90 mph when he lost con­trol of his sled and crashed into an unpadded pole out­side of the track. He was rushed to the hos­pi­tal at the bot­tom of the moun­tain where he died shortly after. (more…)