Northern Michigan University’s Connor Marritt, center, tries to gather the puck in the Bowling Green State defensive zone ahead of the Falcons’ Sam Craggs during the first period of their WCHA game on Feb. 21 at the Berry Events Center in Marquette. (Photo courtesy Shannon Stieg)

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — Playoff matchups have been determined for the first-round quarterfinals of the WCHA Tournament after the regular season wrapped up on Saturday evening.

Northern Michigan University earned the No. 6 seeding, meaning it will travel to No. 3 Bowling Green State (8-5-1) for a best-of-three series on Friday evening, Saturday evening, and if necessary, Sunday afternoon, at Slater Family Ice Arena in Bowling Green, Ohio.

A week ago, the Wildcats were tied for third place with 20 points, but had no more games to play while every other team except Bowling Green had from one to four games to make up due to postponements caused by coronavirus pandemic concerns.

NMU had had a series postponed against Alabama-Huntsville because of that, too, but made it up several weeks ago as the Chargers already had a series scheduled during this makeup week.

All games in the league were made up and each team finished the season playing 14 league games, two against each other team.

The top four seeds host the bottom four seeds for best-of-3’s on Friday through Sunday, with winners advancing to single-game semifinals and finals the following weekend at the site of the highest remaining seed.

The playoff championship winner receives the league’s automatic bid into the NCAA Division I Ice Hockey Championship tournament, along with the Jeff Sauer WCHA Championship Trophy.

Minnesota State-Mankato won the league easily with a 13-1 record and 39 points and earned the No. 1 seed. The Mavericks host last-place Ferris State (0-13-1).

No. 2 Lake Superior State (9-5, 27 points), which had been tied with NMU a week earlier, finished in a tie with Bowling Green but won a tiebreaker for No. 2. The Lakers host No. 7 Alabama-Huntsville (3-11, 8 points).

And No. 4 Bemidji State (8-5-1, 24 points) hosts No. 5 Michigan Tech (7-7, 20 points) in the other first-round series. The Huskies and Wildcats tied for fifth, with MTU winning their tiebreaker.

“We’ve reached the Championship portion of our season in a most challenging and unusual year,” WCHA President and Men’s League Commissioner Bill Robertson said. “I want to congratulate our student-athletes, coaches, staff and administrators at our member institutions for navigating the ever-changing landscape to put us in the position of being the only Division I hockey conference to complete its full league schedule this season.

“All of us at the Western Collegiate Hockey Association are excited to see our teams competing for the Jeff Sauer Championship Trophy over the next two weeks.”

Information compiled by Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.