ANCHORAGE, Alaska- The Alaska-Anchorage Seawolves and the Minnesota State Mavericks skated in an up and down matchup at the Sullivan Arena Friday night. However, it was MSU who came out on top in a game that was dominated by special teams play.

The first period was full of close calls as both UAA goaltender Jon Olthuis and MSU goaltender Mike Zacharias both made exceptional saves. UAA came out of the first period with a 2-0 lead after Tommy Grant and Paul Crowder both scored goals.

Grant who earned the WCHA Player of the Week award earlier this week stayed hot as he scored his fourth goal in three games.

There is a saying that a two goal lead is "The most dangerous lead in hockey." That was exactly the case for the Seawolves in tonight’s matchup as the team found out the hard way.

The Mavericks went on to score three straight goals in the second period (two of which were power play tallies) to take a 3-2 lead. UAA did not fold however.

Paul Crowder was the beneficiary of a scramble in front of Zacharias after Sean Wiles took a shot that bounced off of the net minders’ pads and landed on Crowder’s stick. Crowder had plenty of open net and did not miss to earn what is called a garbage goal to knot things up at three heading into the third period.

That would be the last goal of the game for the Seawolves. At 8:14 of the third period Andrew Sackrison scored the game-winning goal via the power play that was awarded to the Mavericks after a Sean Wiles high sticking infraction.
MSU would go on to add an empty netter with just over a minute remaining in the contest to seal the comeback for the 5-3 victory.

Despite the loss UAA head coach, Dave Shyiak was very optimistic.

“I’m not discouraged at all. Our guys played a great game”, said Shyiak.

So far this season the Seawolves have taken a fair amount of penalties, but the penalty kill had been exceptional coming into the Friday night contest. This time it came back to bight them as the team allowed three MSU power-play goals, which ultimately turned out to be the difference in the game.

When it was even strength, UAA dominated play for the most part, earning 28 total shots-on goal against Zacharias.

“I thought we dominated five-on-five, said Shyiak. “The difference is that they got three power-play goals”.

MSU was opportunistic, as the team managed to score four times on a total of 18 shots-on-goal against Olthuis. The Mavericks added an extra shot and goal on the empty netter scored by Trevor Bruess.

The loss for the Seawolves is the first at the Sullivan Arena since falling short to Northeastern on October 11th. UAA also fell into a fifth place tie with Minnesota State and Wisconsin in the WCHA standings.

Both teams skate again at the same time tonight in attempt to jump that extra spot in the ever competitive WCHA standings.