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MARQUETTE — Northern Michigan University hockey coach Grant Potulny always talks about building toward the end of the year, but there’s no reason why his squad can’t build its resume in December.

NMU earned two of the biggest wins in the nation this season with a sweep of No. 1 Minnesota-Duluth, finishing off the series with a 5-2 victory on Saturday night.

The Wildcats (10-6-1) have won eight of their last 10 games, extending the streak by scoring five goals in both games against the Bulldogs.

A quintet of Northern Michigan University players celebrate after a goal during the Wildcats' game against Minnesota-Duluth at the Berry Events Center in Marquette on Saturday. The group includes Alex Frye, left, and Hank Crone, center, AJ Vanderbeck, second from right, and Ben Newhouse, right. (Journal photo by Travis Nelson)

Duluth was not only ranked No. 1, but was also fifth in the country in goals allowed per game, meaning NMU’s strength dominated against the Bulldogs’ strength.

All in all, it was quite the weekend for the ‘Cats.

“It’s been a pretty good month and a half now, we got some humble pie in (Minnesota State-)Mankato and came back and kind of went to work,” Potulny said after Saturday’s win. “It sounds funny, but I still don’t think we’re hitting on all cylinders yet. (Goaltender) Rico (DiMatteo) played very well tonight, and it almost seems like it’s kind of a different line every night carrying us.”

Northern picked up a 5-4 victory on Friday night after scoring two goals in each of the final two periods to put away UMD. Forward Vincent de Mey scored both third-period goals for NMU, including the game winner with 3:27 left.

Saturday was a different type of game as NMU jumped out to a lead and never gave it back. The Wildcats’ speed was on display early, and defenseman Bo Hanson scored just 1:37 in on the team’s first shot with assists from forwards David Keefer and Hank Crone.

Forward Andre Ghantous appeared to have scored a shorthanded goal around the eight-minute mark of the opening period, but it ruled no goal. Fortunately that didn’t affect NMU, as forward AJ Vanderbeck scored right out of the box on a stretch pass from defenseman Trevor Cosgrove 1:50 into the second period to extend the lead to 2-0.

“It was incredible, you come out of a 4-on-4 (in the) second period and AJ (Vanderbeck) hops on, and he’s the right guy to have on a breakaway,” Potulny said. “It was a nice play by (Trevor) Cosgrove; he had a really good weekend, too.”

Forward Alex Frye scored on a power play about 10 minutes later to make it 3-0 with assists going to Crone and Vanderbeck. Duluth fired back just 45 seconds later with a goal from forward Tanner Ladaroute, and his forward mates Noah Cates and Casey Gilling were on the assist.

Things also went even more in NMU’s favor when Duluth forward Quinn Olson got ejected while picking up a five-minute major penalty for a hit on Vanderbeck. The Wildcats got one goal out of it from Keefer with about 4 1/2 minutes left in the second with helpers from Crone and defenseman Michael Van Unen. That gave Northern a 4-1 lead at the second intermission.

The game got a little dicey at the beginning of the third period when Duluth cut it to 4-2 just two minutes in with a goal by forward Koby Bender with assist from defenseman Hunter Lellig. During the period, NMU was able to kill off two Duluth power plays while getting an empty net goal from Crone to ice it with 2:03 left.

The sweep will go down as an upset to many around the country, but this was something that this NMU team said it expected to accomplish.

“(It’s) huge for our program, obviously playing the No. 1 team in the country, you want to respect them but you don’t wanna look up to them too much,” DiMatteo said. “I think we came into the weekend with the right amount of confidence to get the job done and that’s what we did.”

He had 31 saves on 33 shots by the Bulldogs, a performance that Potulny previously lauded. What could be a scary thing for future opponents is that even though the Wildcats are rolling right now, they don’t believe they’ve reached their ceiling.

“Obviously, the energy in the room’s really good right now,” DiMatteo said. “Guys are happy, but our mentality is we know we have more. Individually, guys know they have more, myself included, and that just brings the excitement up even more (that) we haven’t even reached our potential yet.”

The Wildcats have one series left before the holiday break, this weekend at Lake Superior State. NMU has had to fight back from early-season struggles to get to this hot streak. This team that’s on a roll, this is the one that Potulny envisioned heading into the season.

“I hope they feel good, I hate saying this but this is what I expected this team to be,” Potulny said. “Going into the year, I thought at every position we were as strong as or stronger in some positions than we’ve ever been.

“Then you get the injury bug to start the year and you’re playing good teams, I think the resiliency to fight through that, too, that can derail some seasons and the way that guys came through it, and kind of ticked one game off and the next game off and we’ve been kind of building towards this.

“Hopefully it can continue and springboard us into next weekend.”

Game times in Sault Ste. Marie are 7 p.m. Friday and 6 p.m. Saturday with radio coverage on WUPT 100.3 FM The Point.

Travis Nelson can be reached by email at tnelson@miningjournal.net.