BSU Men’s Hockey Re-Focuses on CCHA Quarterfinal Matchup with Ferris State

The Bemidji State men’s hockey team may have been the kings of the regular season, but to make it to the NCAA tourney, they will now have to traverse the CCHA Mason Cup Playoffs, where an automatic qualifying bid awaits the champion.

After sweeping Minnesota State this past weekend to win the MacNaughton Cup and secure home ice throughout the conference playoffs, Bemidji State shifts their focus to a best-of-three home quarterfinal series with Ferris State. The Beavers took three out of four games against the Bulldogs this season, but that means very little come playoff time.

“There’s a fine line between everybody in college hockey, so I don’t look at anything,” said head coach Tom Serratore. “I don’t look at who’s – what place they’re in, what pairwise. I think if you start looking at that kind of stuff, your mind will start playing tricks on you. All I can tell you is that they beat us in Ferris State, we went to an overtime game right here. They’ve all been tight games, really tight games. Game we won here, it was 2 to 1 with what, five minutes to go. Any matchups in college hockey, every game, they’re always nail biters and that’s what the fans expect. That’s what the coaches expect. That’s the players expect.”

“But we feel really good, we feel confident, but it’s been a lot of hard work and we just got to keep showing up every day, consistently,” said fifth-year senior captain defenseman Kyle Looft. “Showing up with a good attitude, working hard, it starts Monday when we get here. Playing the right way, getting pucks deep, going to work, playing an unselfish game as a team, playing for each other. [We’re] doing really well with sacrifice stats and we’ve been doing that recently, so we just got to keep going.”

In all likelihood, BSU needs the AQ bid to make the NCAA tournament, because their pairwise ranking of 33rd is too high. Those rankings will be used to determine the 10 at-large bids for the 16-team field.

The Beavers play the Bulldogs this Friday, March 8 at 7 p.m. and Saturday, March 9 at 6 p.m., and, if necessary, on Sunday, March 10 at 5 p.m.