Spartans fall to Wildcats Friday night in East Lansing

By Stefan Kubus –

EAST LANSING – When it seemed the Michigan State Spartans were crawling back into the game, down a pair of goals heading into the third period, Northern Michigan had all the answers.

Led by Melvin native and sophomore Reed Seckel – the game’s first star with two goals and two assists – and senior Matt Thurber – also with two goals and two assists – the Wildcats played a complete 60 minutes to secure a 5-3 victory.

With the win, the Wildcats pull into ninth place in the CCHA, one ahead of Michigan and seven ahead of Michigan State.

Spartans head coach Tom Anastos said it was simply a game of ‘too little, too late’ for his squad.

“Too many fatal mistakes to be able to overcome on our team,” Anastos said. “We’re not a team that can give up five goals in a game and win.”

The Wildcats jumped out to an early 2-0 lead on goals by junior forward Erik Higby and Seckel.

Higby’s goal was generated from a poor turnover on a breakout in the MSU zone. Michigan State netminder Jake Hildebrand – he made 29 saves in the loss – made two consecutive saves on Seckel, but couldn’t stop Higby cleaning up the garbage on the third chance.

“The first goal that we give up, a simple play we talk about, I can’t tell you how many times, and we make that turnover, it ends up in our net,” Anastos said of the goal. “Those things build up and cause frustration.”

Minutes later, amidst a crowd of bodies in front of Hildebrand, Seckel tipped home a Ryan Trenz shot from the point to make it a 2-0 Wildcats lead heading into the dressing room.

The physicality picked up quite a bit in the second stanza, but on the scoresheet, it was more of the same. Late in the period, Seckel set up Matt Thurber on the power play for his second assist and third point of the night.

The Spartans came alive in the third period, however.

At the 9:41 mark, Matt Berry, pointless since Jan. 19 and goalless since Dec. 30, made a nifty forehand-backhand move down low on a rebound to roof one over Coreau to get his Spartans on the board with his 12th of the year.

“Someone kept it in on the wall and then it got to Walsh, he made a nice saucer pass over to me on the far side,” Berry said of his goal. “And then I just cut it back across and scored on the blocker side.”

With just over five minutes remaining, Michigan State capitalized on a crucial power play chance to pull within one. Jake Chelios’ shot from the point slithered its way past goaltender Jared Coreau and barely crossed the goal line. Fortunately for him, the official was in great position to see the puck cross the goal line.

Thurber added his second tally of the game just three minutes later at the 17:35 mark to make it a 4-2 Wildcats lead.

Despite a late push, including a goal by Brent Darnell with Hildebrand pulled, the Spartans were unable to find the tying goal. With 11 seconds to play, Seckel put the icing on the cake with an empty-netter from center ice.

“I don’t really know exactly what it was, but we had a spark for the last 10 (minutes),” MSU captain Greg Wolfe said of the game. “Obviously we need to have that for 50 more minutes to be successful, but it was a big positive seeing that. If we can take that momentum into tomorrow then we have a really good chance to win.”

Game 2 is set for tomorrow night, 7:35 p.m., at Munn Ice Arena in East Lansing on Fox Sports Detroit as a part of Hockey Day in Michigan.

“To our credit, we fought back and made it a game in the third period, but good teams don’t make those mistakes redundantly and we have to eliminate them if we’re going to give ourselves a chance to put anything together,” Anastos said.

Notes: With their win, NMU pulls into ninth place in the CCHA, leaving Michigan and Michigan State in the last two positions in the conference… Total shots: 34-34 tie… Last season, MSU took a 2-1-1 record over NMU… Attendance: 5,715