St. Cloud State Men’s Hockey was in Kalamazoo with the season on the line Saturday night, facing the Western Michigan Broncos.

To put in bluntly, it was not the start the Huskies envisioned. In the first six minutes of the game, St. Cloud would take four minor penalties, one of which resulted in a 5-on-3 goal from Western Michigan star Alex Bump. The rest of the period would even out with only a pair of matching minors penalties being called on Nick Portz and a Bronco late. That was the only positive for the Huskies through twenty though, as they were being outshot 13-2 and outscored 1-0.

The second period would start a bit better for the Huskies, as they would creep back into the game with some offensive possession. The shot totals would creep back to 18-11 in favor of WMU at one point, but over the past six minutes the world fell back in on the Huskies, highlighted by a goal Garrett Szydlowski with less than four minutes to go to double the Bronco lead heading into the final break.

Less than two minutes into the third period, Western tripled their lead after a Tim Washe deflection beat Sophomore goaltender Isak Posch. A 5-on-3 opportunity for the Huskies looked like it would be the way for the Huskies, and they capitalized as Tyson Gross scored his 9th of the season to make it 3-1. That sign of life would dim quickly, as a couple of minutes later the Broncos would pull it back with a goal by Wyatt Schingoethe to essentially put a dagger in the SCSU season. A Cooper Wylie goal a few minutes later did pull the game back within two, but seconds after that a empty net goal from Alex Bump iced the game for good. As the final horn sounded, it was the Husky season concluding at the hands of the Penrose winning Broncos 6-2, with the sixth goal coming from Tim Washe’s fourth point of the night.