Caleb Herbert scored his first of two goals on the night at 2:47 of the period to give the 'Dogs a 1-0 lead. The rest of the first period story was Kenny Reiter, who stopped all 21 Mankato shots he faced in the period, keeping the Dogs up 1-0 despite numerous good scoring chances.

J.T. Brown putt he Dogs up 2-0 at 4:54 of the second period, and Herbert scored his second of the night at 17:23 and UMD took a 3-0 lead to the second intermission. The second period featured an interesting 29 seconds of penalty calling, with the teams alternating minors that ended up with 1:31 of 3 on 3 play, though resulting on no scoring.

Mankato put themslves on the board quickly into the third period, with 6 foot 4 inch Eriah Hayes scoring on a 4 on 3 powerplay. Jack Connolly answered that goal at 3:01, and Travis Oleksuk buried a pass from Herbert to put the Dogs up 5-1 at 5:36. Mankato made it 5-2 at 12:43 on an Adam Mueller goal over Kenny Reiter's glove side, but couldn't cut the lead any farther. Reiter stopped 34 of the 36 shots he faced, while Mankato goaltender Austin Lee stopped 29 of 34 UMD shots.

Friday game pictures

On Saturday, after the teams skated a scoreless first period, with UMD killing off 3 penalties, and Mankato 2 penalties, the Dogs exploded in opening minutes of the second period for 4 goals in a span of 1 minute 36 seconds. Justin Crandall (from David Grun and Jake Hendrickson) started the scoring at 1:40, and was quickly followed up by J.T. Brown (from Oleksuk and Connolly) at 1:57. 55 seconds later Caleb Herbert (Scott Kishel and Brown) made it 3-0 UMD, then 24 seconds later Joe Basaraba made it 4-0 Dogs. Mankato called timeout at that point, replacing goaltender Phil Cook with Friday nights' starter Austin Lee. Cook wasn't credited with a single save in the 3:16 of the second period, and 7 in the first period. Mankato responded to the timeout, getting a goal from Matt Leitner at 5:19 of the period. The teams went to the second intermission with UMD up 4-1.

Mankato got on the 3rd period scoreboard quick, with a Max Gaede goal 43 seconds in to cut the Dogs lead to 4-2. Jack Connolly (Brown and Kishel) started a third period burst for UMD, with a goal at 3:13, then Jake Hendrickson (Justin Crandall, Grun) scored 1:10 later at 4:23. Brady Lamb put UMD up 7-2 at 8:11 of the third period to finish the Dogs scoring. Mankato got a powerplay goal from Eli Zuck at 15:23, but that was as close as they got. Kenny Reiter stopped 22 of 25 Mankato shots for the win, Cook stopped 7 of 11 getting the loss for Mankato, while Lee stopped 23 of 26 in relief of Cook.

Saturday game pictures