The Wildcats pulled out a pair of comeback 4-2 victories at the Falcons to tie Bemidji for fourth place in the league, and with the second tiebreaker, clinch the fourth and final home seed for this weekend’s first-round quarterfinals of the CCHA’s Mason Cup playoffs.

NMU trailed Bemidji by three points entering the weekend and needed the Beavers to give back at least three points, the simplest way being a regulation loss to seventh-place St. Thomas.

The Tommies did just that favor for Northern on Friday night, posting a 3-1 home win against their intrastate rival.

Bemidji came back to win Saturday 7-2, but with Northern also winning that night, it didn’t matter anymore.

With Northern Michigan University's Colby Enns, right, skating for the puck, the Wildcats' Michael Colella, left, tries to impede the progress of Michigan Tech's Brett Thorne in front of the Wildcats' net in the third period of their CCHA hockey game played at the Berry Events Center in Marquette on Jan. 28. (Photo courtesy Daryl T. Jarvinen)

The NMU sweep also insured that Ferris State, which had been tied with the Wildcats entering the weekend but behind them on the tiebreaker, couldn’t leapfrog Northern as the Bulldogs faced last-place Lake Superior State.

The Wildcats and Beavers both finished with 39 points as the first tiebreaker — head-to-head regulation wins — didn’t break the deadlock either as each team had two regulation wins vs. the other.

The second tiebreaker was regulation wins in all league games — NMU had 11 regulation wins while compiling a 14-12 CCHA record, while Bemidji had nine regulation wins as they were 12-11-3 in the conference.

Now the Beavers make the trek to Marquette to play the Wildcats in a best-of-3 quarterfinal series this weekend with games at 7:07 p.m. Friday, 6:07 p.m. Saturday, and if necessary, again at 6:07 p.m. Sunday.

Fans can purchase tickets for those games online by visiting https://nmu.universitytickets.com/. Prices are $18 for the general public; $14 for seniors at least age 60, military members and NMU faculty and staff; and $10 for students ages 3-18 and for each person in groups of 15 or more. No indication was made for a price for NMU students, though.

By the way, Northern is one of just three CCHA teams with a winning overall record at 18-16-0. The others are league champ Minnesota State-Mankato at 21-12-1 (16-9-1 CCHA for 52 points) and Michigan Tech at 22-9-4 (15-7-4 CCHA for 50 points).

Despite finishing third with 41 points, Bowling Green (12-12-2 CCHA) was only 15-17-2 overall, while Bemidji finished up at 14-15-5 overall. Ferris, St. Thomas nor LSSU all were at least six games under .500 overall.

Here are a summary of each game in Ohio:

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NMU 4, Bowling Green 2

On Friday, the Wildcats pulled out the first of two straight comeback wins, turning each night’s 2-1 deficit into a 4-2 victory.

In the opener, Kristof Papp was the only Northern player with multiple points, a goal and an assist, as eight of his teammates tallied a point.

That included freshman goalie Beni Halasz, who picked up the second assist on AJ Vanderbeck’s first-period score, the only power play goal by either team all weekend.

Halasz also made 22 saves for his third straight win while BG counterpart Christian Stoever had 19 stops.

Papp now has six points in his past three games as his season totals bumped up to 11 goals and 13 assists for 24 points.

NMU had the initial scoring chances, including a one-timer by Joey Larson that went just wide, an open-net look by Artem Shlaine that rang off the post and a slick move by David Keefer to slide a backhand pass to Jett Jungels in the slot that went through the latter’s skates, according to a game account from NMU Sports Information.

Bowling Green also had a good chance about five minutes in with an odd-man advantage. Halasz stopped the first shot with his mask and the rebound with a nifty right-to-left move to close down a wide-open chance, according to NMU SI.

Not long after that at 6:18 in, a harmless-looking shot by BG’s Zach Vinnell from the point ricocheted off the shin pad of teammate Brett Pfoh and past Halasz for Pfoh’s second career goal.

Then not quite three minutes later, Vanderbeck took a breakout pass from Simon Kjellberg at the Falcons’ blue line and fired in a wicked wrister to beat Stoever blocker side, according to NMU SI. It was Vanderbeck’s team-leading 13th goal of the season and Kjellberg’s fourth point in three games while also giving Halasz his second assist as a freshman.

BGSU retook the lead 2-1 with just over a minute left in the opening period after getting nothing on a power play just before that. Instead, with the Wildcats back at full strength, Northern tried to clear the puck as it hit several players and came back to the Falcons’ Austen Swankler, who was in the slot and had a wide-open net to score into.

BG used the renewed momentum to get off three shots in the first two minutes of the middle period, though a few minutes after that, Larson took a puck off the end boards and spun around but missed the net with his shot.

Then 50 seconds after the midpoint of the period, an Artem Shlaine shot was blocked and landed in teammate Michael Van Unen’s lap as he fired it in to retie it 2-2. This was Van Unen first goal this season, though he has points in his last three games, while it was Shlaine’s sixth point in the last three contests as Papp also got his assist.

Though both teams had good chances to take the lead before the period ended, they entered the third still deadlocked. NMU began the final 20 minutes hot, but it took until 8:10 was elapsed for Tanner Vescio to bag the game winner.

Walking the blue line, he received a pass from Michael Colella before shooting it through a perfect screen set by teammate Connor Eddy, according to NMU SI. It was Vescio’s second goal of the season, both coming in his last three games. Andre Ghantous’ secondary assist was his sixth helper in the past three contests.

Now leading, Northern had to kill off a penalty with about eight minutes left as Halasz made a stellar save 15 seconds in, while Aiden Gallacher made two crucial blocks as the BG power play wound down.

Papp sealed the result with his empty-netter with 11 seconds remaining.

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On Saturday, the Wildcats took longer to dig their 2-1 hole, meaning they barely had more than a period to play catchup. And they did, with Keefer scoring twice in the third and Ghantous getting his second of the night then to finish off the sweep.

Ghantous now has a team-leading 22 assists and 33 points, while Keefer moved to the top of the NMU goals list with 14. And Halasz made 24 saves for a total of 46 for the weekend while allowing just four goals during the trip. Stoever was called on to make 29 stops for BGSU.

This playoff home-ice clincher was also the first time this season in 13 tries that NMU won a game after trailing at the end of the second period.

Most of the first period was scoreless, despite Northern taking the early momentum with three good scoring opportunities early. Halasz also had a sharp stick save in the early going on Swankler.

With a little under five minutes left in the first, BGSU worked the puck from low to high as Ethan Scardina scored after tipping a shot from the point, according to NMU SI.

Each team had multiple power plays that ended in the second period, but there would be no special teams goals on this night.

Finally with 6:51 left in the second and the teams at even strength, Ghantous carried the puck end to end and used a defender as a screen to fire a wrist shot over Stoever’s blocker hand to tie it 1-1.

But BG reassumed the lead just 15 seconds later when Nathan Burke took a shot that deflected off a Wildcat skater’s stick in front of the net and past Halasz.

Both teams had more chances to score as the period wound down, but the Falcons entered the third ahead 2-1.

That’s when the NMU offense caught fire. After Halasz stopped Swankler as he was all alone between the hash marks, the Wildcats regained possession going the other way and Alex Frye slid a perfect feed to Keefer to shovel the puck past Stoever and tie it just 1:59 in, according to NMU SI.

About 7 1/2 minutes later, Keefer nailed another scoring chance as he slid past a pair of defenders during a 4-on-4 situation and knocked the puck in again for what would prove to be the game winner.

Finally, BGSU pulled Stoever with a minute left and it almost paid off as the Falcons rang the pipe next to Halasz before Ghantous got control and fired a rink-length shot into the open net with 26 seconds remaining.

Eddy’s assist on the first goal was his ninth point this season and fifth in five games, while Kjellberg extended his point streak to four games and Colella’s to two games as they assisted on the game winner.

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