MARQUETTE – The last time that Northern Michigan University got a home hockey sweep was January of a year ago against Alaska-Anchorage.

On Saturday, they did it again to the Seawolves.

The Wildcats took a commanding four-goal lead in the second period and withstood a furious rally to defeat Anchorage 5-4 at the Berry Events Center. Mathias Dahlstrom earned his fourth victory in net and he is undefeated this year.

“I thought we came out in the second period and the first 10 minutes of the second, was the kind of game that we wanted to play,” NMU head coach Walt Kyle said. “We did a really good job. We finished on some opportunities and they struggled a bit in goal.

“There were a lot of guys who had to step tonight and play a lot of minutes. They did a great job, I give those guys a lot of credit and we got through it.

“I’m glad it (the sweep) happened at home. You want to be good at home. Sometimes it’s difficult, but you have that obligation to your fans.”

When asked if there was a sense of relief to finally earn a sweep, NMU forward Dominik Shine said they knew it would happened eventually.

“It was just a matter of time,” he said. “We had a lot of chances to do it throughout the year and it just never happened. So it’s a good time for it to happen at the end of the year.”

In the first period, Northern was the more aggressive team. The Wildcats had two shots down low in the first two minutes, but they were rejected by Anchorage goalie Olivier Mantha. Northern struck first at the 4:48 mark when Shine collected the puck, lined up his shot and beat Mantha top-shelf above the blocker.

The Seawolves answered quickly though at the 5:42 mark when Dylan Hubbs tapped a rebound past Dahlstrom, tying the score at 1-1. The remainder of the period was marked by strong saves by the netminders. Dahlstrom made two sliding saves to deny shots and Mantha denied Denver Pierce of a point-blank shot. After struggling on the power play all season, Northern connected on it at the 14:41 mark when defenseman Brock Maschmeyer launched a shot from the blue line that found the back of the net.

Dahlstrom came up big near the end of the period to maintain the slim one-goal advantage. With two NMU players in the box, the senior made a diving save across the crease, just getting his blocker on a shot that garnered some “oohs” from the crowd.

In the second period, the scoring was early and often. Shine notched his second goal of the night just 19 seconds in when he beat Mantha five-hole. NMU later went up by three goals at the 6:32 mark when Denver Pierce scored just under the crossbar and less than a minute later, Barrett Kaib put the Wildcats up by four. Neither Mantha nor his backup, Jared D’Amico, could stop the NMU attack in the period.

After being denied by Dahlstrom the entire period including on two point-blank shots by Tad Kozun, UAA forward Blake Tatchell beat the NMU goalie high, cutting the deficit to three. A little more than a minute later, NMU’s lead was whittled down to two. After creating a turnover, UAA defenseman Wyatt Ege made a long pass to Anthony Conti, who then fed Brad Duwe as he was streaking across the blue line. Duwe then tucked the puck past Dahlstrom’s skate at the far post. The Wildcats went into the break holding on to a now-slim 5-3 advantage.

“I think we got a little too confident,” Wildcats center Darren Nowick said. “I think we had a little too much fun on the bench.”

Mantha returned to the net at the start of third period and he kept Anchorage in the game early on. He stopped two good shots by James Vermeulen and Filip Starzynski and with around 13 minutes to play, he blocked a wrister by Shine.

The Seawolves made things interesting in the closing minutes. After Mantha was pulled for the extra attacker, Blake Leask scored his first goal of the year to cut NMU’s lead to only one goal.

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