Bulldogs swept by Notre Dame

By Tom Morelli/Ferris State Beat Writer

Following a dominant performance against Northern Michigan in their previous series, Ferris State experienced a turn for the worse after losing twice to No. 1-ranked Notre Dame over the weekend.

Bulldogs captain Cody Chupp gave his team an early nod in the second period Friday night after scoring in the first minute of play. Chupp’s fifth of the campaign came against Irish goaltender Jordan Pearce and was set-up by assistant captains Blair Riley and Zach Redmond.

Notre Dame evened-up the score at 8:29 in the period, when Ben Ryan finished off a pass from Erik Condra and Ian Cole. A slashing penalty the next minute by Ferris State defenseman Chad Billins proved costly as Calle Ridderwall lit the lamp on the man-advantage to put the Irish ahead by a 2-1 margin.

Ridderwall came through again in the next period when he and Kevin Deeth set-up a power-play goal for Christian Hanson with just four minutes remaining in the game.

Pearce collected 30 saves, compared to the 24 stops by Bulldogs netminder Taylor Nelson.

Ferris State put together a competitive performance against Notre Dame the following night, but once again came up short in the end.

Both teams remained scoreless until late in the second period, when Dan Kissel finished off a pass from Cole and Patrick Gaul that snuck past goaltender Pat Nagle at the 17:55 mark.

Kissel’s goal turned out to be the game-winner, which extended to Irish’s unbeaten streak to 12 games. However, tempers flared at the end of the game which resulted in three players from each side getting slapped with roughing and misconduct penalties. Among the guilty parties were Scott Wietcha, Aaron Lewicki and Redmond of Ferris State and Teddy Ruth, Ryan Guentzel and Brett Blatchford of Notre Dame.

Pearce put together a 25-save performance to get his second victory in as many nights, while Nagle stopped 33 shots.

The pair of losses drops the Bulldogs to a 7-8-3 overall record and they now stand at 6-6-2 in conference play. Ferris State looks to get back on the winning side next weekend when they face-off with Alabama-Huntsville in a non-conference series at the Ewigleben Ice Arena in Big Rapids.