MSU Mankato's season ends on loss in WCHA final

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – Minnesota State Mankato's season came to an end when the Mavericks lost 2-1 to Ferris State on Saturday in the championship game of the WCHA Final Five.

The Mavericks took a 1-0 lead on Bryce Gervais' power-play goal midway through the opening period. He deflected a shot taken by senior defenseman Jon Jutzi from the point.

The Bulldogs tied the score about four minutes later on Brandon Anselmini's power-play goal. And Ferris State took a 2-1 lead on Gerald Mayhew's penalty shot with 26 seconds left in the second period. It was his 14th goal of the season and came after the Mavericks' Carter Foguth was called for closing his hand on the puck.

"Usually when we've got off to scoring the first goal, we've had pretty good luck," Mavericks coach Mike Hastings said. "But I thought Ferris just kept coming. We couldn't keep up with their pace. And so I thought we were chasing the game quite a bit tonight. It's one of the first times in a long time that we've lost the possession battle, but we did tonight. That's the game.

"You want to give credit to Ferris because they deserved it."

Cole Huggins stopped 27 shots for MSU Mankato (21-13-7), which had won this tournament the past two seasons and tied for the WCHA regular-season title with Michigan Tech this season.

Ferris State goalie Darren Smith needed to make only 13 saves — one in the third period.

The Mavericks, who were held to a season-low 14 shots, were 1-for-4 on the power play, the Bulldogs 1-5.

"From my side and the staff's side, I'm going to miss this group of seniors, for obvious reasons," said Hastings, in his fourth season at MSU Mankato. "They've won 100 games in their four-year career since they've been here. That's on ice. But the things you don't get to see off ice, in the classroom, how they did it over their four-year career. We're going to miss them for a lot of different reasons, not just on the ice."

"Tough way to end the season, but I do believe Ferris State is going to represent the WCHA very well in the NCAA tournament because they're battle-tested. They proved that tonight."

The Bulldogs (19-14-6), who finished fourth in the WCHA race, were 1-5 in their last six regular-season games but have gone 4-0 in the conference playoffs.