MARQUETTE The Northern Michigan University hockey Wildcats gave up five goals Friday night, but were able to escape with a tie.

That good fortune didn’t happen on Saturday, however. The Wildcats fell to Bowling Green State 5-0.

The Falcons blocked 15 shots, which played a big role in keeping NMU (8-4-2 overall, 5-4-1 WCHA) off the scoreboard.

BGSU (11-3-2, 8-1-1) also outshot the Wildcats 29-26 as NMU appeared to still be suffering fatigue from the two Alaska road series the previous two weekends.

“We could feel it as the game went on,” NMU head coach Walt Kyle said. “We came out flat. We hit four posts tonight and we needed a couple of those to go in to give us a spark and they didn’t.

“We had some great opportunities that we just didn’t finish on.

“I knew tonight was going to be harder from (Friday) night because of our fatigue and it’s not a physical fatigue,” he added. “It’s a mental fatigue.”

The Falcons got on the scoreboard first when Ben Murphy beat Wildcats goalie Mathias Dahlstrom near the end of the first period. Dajon Mingo and Mark Cooper picked up the assists.

NMU had a five-minute power play in the frame after BGSU defenseman Nolan Valleau got ejected for contact to the head, but the Wildcats couldn’t get anything going offensively.

“Our power play has been down and then we started to score a little on it,” Kyle said. “We had a couple of looks tonight on a 5-on-3 that we missed the net on.

“We’ve got to have some of these guys that we expect to provide offense from start to do that.”

After BGSU center Pierre-Luc Mercier tucked the puck inside the pipe in the second period to put the Falcons up 2-0 the Wildcats turned the puck over and Mercier burned them again.

The sophomore sniped a low shot past Dahlstrom and BGSU led 3-0 heading into the final period.

“”They’re a very good team,” NMU captain Ryan Kesti said of the Falcons. “They took care of the opportunities that they got.

“The turnovers we had, they capitalized on them and that’s a sign of a good team.”

BGSU finished off its scoring with two goals in the third period, Murphy posted his second of the game and Adam Berkle got the other.

The Wildcats travel to Bemidji (Minnesota) State next weekend before heading into the winter break.

Ryan Stieg can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 246. His email address is rstieg@miningjournal.net.