Despite taking an early two-goal lead, Lake Superior State fell to Ferris State 5-2 at Taffy Abel Arena on Friday night.
The Lakers, in desperate need of a win heading into Friday’s game, lost their ninth straight game.
Trevor Weisgerber started the scoring for the Lakers at the 3:44 mark of the first period with an unassisted goal from right outside the Bulldogs’ net. Weisgerber’s goal was his second of the season.
“Weisgerber’s goal gave us some positive momentum,” Lake Superior State coach Scott Borek said. “It made us do a better job around the net. It actually helped us for the whole 60 minutes to do a better job around the net. We got a lot of second shots tonight, but we did not bury very many more.”
Freshman Kyle Anderson added to the Lakers’ lead with a goal at the 3:10 mark of the second. Chris Peterson and Justin Micek added assists on Anderson’s goal, his third goal of the season.
Just three minutes later, Ferris State took control with a power-play goal from Rob Lightfoot.
Less than a minute later, Kevin Swider scored his 13th goal of the season to tie the game for the Bulldogs. Jim Dube and Chris Kunitz assisted on Swider’s power-play goal.
“Giving up that second goal, that was a back-breaker,” Borek said. “I thought our guys battled after that, but nothing good happened in the hockey game after that second goal.”
The Bulldogs carried the momentum into the third period and took the lead just under four minutes in.
Christian Schroeder scored a power-play goal from the blue line to give Ferris State the 3-2 lead.
Chris Kunitz increased the lead to two with an unassisted goal at the 6:48 mark.
The Lakers pulled goaltender Jayme Platt with 1:14 remaining in the game, but Swider scored an empty-net goal with five seconds remaining to give Ferris the 5-2 win.
The Lakers gave up three shorthanded goals and went 0-for-6 on the power play.
“Our confidence on the penalty killing right now is quite low, and [the Bulldogs’] confidence on the power play is quite high,” Borek said. “We do not want to get into a game where we are trading opportunities. 5-on-5 it was a very even hockey game, but we can’t afford to get into a game of special teams.”
Platt stopped 26 shots for the Lakers, while Phil Osaer recorded 25 saves for the Bulldogs.
Ferris State improved to 12-13-4 overall and 8-10-3 in the CCHA. Lake State dropped to 10-20-0 overall and 6-17-0 in the CCHA.
The two teams will meet again Saturday to finish off the two-game series.
