MINOT, ND ‒ The Minot State men's hockey team kicked off their two-night series against the University of Mary with a 5-2 victory over the Marauders. 

No pucks from either side of the ice found their way through the other team's goal the entirety of the first period on Friday night. The most action fans saw came from a UMary roughing penalty and a MSU hooking penalty; at the end of the first regulation period the score was tied 0-0. 

Jared Hamm stormed onto the ice with a mission to put the Beavers on top and did so with a set up from Carter Barley just 3:02 into the second period. UMary fought strongly to hold off the Minot State offense for the remainder of the period but couldn't stop MSU from scoring. Carter Barley scored two goals in two minutes during power plays off assists by Drew Carter, Jared Hamm, Davis Sheldon, and Wayde Johannesson to give the Beavers insurance with a now 3-0 lead. 

The Marauders clapped back at the beavers by sneaking a short-handed goal through the defense of Riley Wallace just 32 seconds into the third period. With a score of 3-1 Reece Henry sent the puck over to Jared Hamm, who was able to one-up UMary by adding another goal to the Beavers' scoreboard. Minot State was unable to hold off the Marauders for the remainder of the game as they scored one more goal on the night, improving to 4-2 in MSU's favor. Landyn Cochrane sealed the deal on Minot State's Friday night victory,  scoring the last goal of the night 11:16 into the third period with assists from Drew Carter and Carter Barley, putting the Beavers on top of the Marauders 5-2. 

With just 107 miles separating the two programs, the instate rivalry between ACHA Division I Minot State and Division II UMary made for this competition to be a highly anticipated series between the two teams. Minot State came into this game No. 2 in the DI polls, while UMary is sitting at the top as the No.1 DII hockey team nationally in the ACHA. It was expected to have an intense game with great competition, but not in the way the Beavers had planned for it to go. 

Head coach Wyatt Waselenchuk reflected on Minot State's defeat over UMary saying, "I didn't like us tonight, not at all." Waselenchuk continues, "Just looking at the stats sheet‒34, 36 turnovers‒they took it to us for a large portion of that game." Coach Waselenchuk credits their success to power play advantages Minot State was able to capitalize on, thanks to a few UMary penalties. "We were lucky for sure," he mentions, "we definitely have to do more, especially going into a hostile environment like that."

Defensively, Riley Wallace played all sixty minutes in between the pipes and saved 21 shots from entering the MSU goal. It was a rough night for the defensive skaters, as they saw over 30 turnovers in Friday night's game.  When asked what the team will need to work on most to improve before Saturday night's game against the Marauders, without skipping a beat Coach Waselenchuk replied, "Our D-zone." Waselenchuk continues, "I know we scored five goals, we just weren't clean with our zone entries. We just have to clean up the attention to detail for sure. We'll learn from it and build from it, hopefully we learned a good lesson tonight."

The Beavers head on the road Saturday, Dec. 5th, for the second game of their weekend series against University of Mary. Puck drops at 7p.m. in the Schwan Cadillac Rink at Starion Sports Complex in Mandan, ND.