MINOT, ND — Minot State men's hockey earned a 7-3 victory over No. 23 Midland University on Friday night in the Maysa. The last matchup between the two teams took place just over two months ago, fueling the fire for intense competition on the rink from the second the puck dropped at 8p.m. down to the last five seconds of the game. 

History between these two teams this season shows the Beavers outscoring the Warriors 12-1 in their previous matchups, including a complete game shutout. Friday night's game was different than their last contest this past November, with the Warriors really making the Beavers earn this win this time around. 

"They're a hard-working team and they're well coached," Head Coach Wyatt Waselenchuk comments on Midland's performance, "they have a new coach and he's doing a lot of really good things with that team, so I knew they'd be much improved since we played them in November in Fremont." 

Both teams were aggressive in all aspects of the game, making it hard for the other to score and take the lead early on in the first period. Breaking through to score the first goal of the night was Josh Pederson over 13 minutes into the first, with assists from Wayde Johannesson and Austin Wieler. After 13:28 of a scoreless game, MSU decided to change the pace of play, firing two more goals past the Warriors within the next three minutes after Pederson put one up on the scoreboard. 

Connor Navrot passed the puck over to Drew Carter 15:15 into the first period to give Minot State an extra hand in taking the lead over MU. Shortly after, Wayde Johannesson picked up a cross checking penalty that set the Beavers up for short-handed success that they were able to achieve with the work of Pederson and Carter. Just one minute and fifteen seconds after the last goal that put MSU up 2-0, Josh Pederson tipped it up to Drew Carter in a one-man-down situation and shot right through Midland's defense and into the net, giving the Beavers a 3-0 lead at the end of the first period. 

Davis Sheldon kept the scoring streak hot, opening up the second period of the game with a goal just 3:25 of play in the second. Jay Buccholz earned the assist and ten minutes later even scored his own goal, this time with assists by Paul O'Connor and Davis Sheldon, who must've been returning the favor. An unassisted goal by Midland skater Zach Weber found its' way through the defensive blocking of Riley Wallace shortly after Sheldon's early goal, but the Beavers were still confident with a 4-1 lead as the second twenty minutes of the game came to a close. 

It almost seemed as if the scoring torch had been passed from Minot State to Midland during the second game intermission, as the Warriors began to battle back in the first half of the final period of the game, scoring two goals in under eight minutes. With a now lead of 5-3, the Beavers seemed to let go of the throttle as Midland quickly began to creep up from behind. "That's a team that—we let off the gas and they took it to us", notes Coach Waselenchuk. 

With 0:26 left in the final period of the game, Jared Hamm and Reid Arnold worked the puck over to Reece Henry to give the Beavers some more insurance against the Warriors, making the score 6-3. Minot State wasn't ready to stop as the clock counted down the final seconds. Just 0:05 remained in the Friday night matchup, Reece Henry swiped one over to Jared Hamm who was able to sneak one last goal past the Midland's defense, putting MSU over the Warriors 7-3 to cap off the night. 

Despite the final-second strenuous effort by the offensive lines to seal the deal, Coach Waselenchuk reflects on the Beavers' performance as "frustrating, to say the least." Waselenchuk continues, "no matter what the score is you just keep on going and doing things the right way...tonight we got away from that," he notes, "it was not our best effort by any means." 

No. 2 Minot State will host the No. 23 Midland Warriors again tonight, Saturday Jan 29th in the Maysa arena at 8:00p.m. When asked if there will be any changes to MSU's gameplan for round two against the Warriors, Waselenchuk looks to "work even harder tomorrow and clean things up." 

Including tonight's Saturday night "Pack the Pepsi" game at the Maysa against No. 23 Midland, the Beavers have just six games remaining on their schedule including two top-twenty opponents: No. 3 Liberty University and No. 16 University of Arizona, followed by a final away game at Dakota College at Bottineau to close out the regular season. With postseason play around the corner, Coach Waselenchuk closed out his final thoughts on the 7-3 victory over the Warriors mentioning, "there's lots of guys in there that kinda gotta look in the mirror for sure and bring a better effort because the national tournament is about six weeks away," he states, "if we bring that kind of effort, it's going to be a short trip to St. Louis.