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EAST LANSING - Michigan State's winning streak came to an end on Friday night. The Spartans are still streaking, however, but now it's an unbeaten skein.
MSU is unbeaten in five consecutive games after a 3-3 tie with Nebraska-Omaha and subsequent 2-1 loss in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association shootout to the Mavericks in front of 4,147 fans at Munn Arena.
The No. 17 Spartans (7-2-1 overall, 3-0-1-0) earned one point in league play under the new CCHA points format, while No. 10 Nebraska-Omaha (4-1-3, 1-1-2-1) picked up two points.
A victory in regulation time or overtime is worth three points. Two points are awarded for a shootout win; a team losing in the shootout receives one point.
Coupled with Thursday's 3-0 win in the series opener, MSU earned four of a possible six points and heads into next weekend's home-and-home series against Michigan with a 4-0-1 record in its last five games.
"It was a struggle. They were better from Thursday and we weren't as good,'' MSU coach Rick Comley said. "We scrapped and stayed around and tied it (in the third period), but we really hurt ourselves with penalties."
The Spartans saw a 2-1 lead disappear in the second period when Nebraska-Omaha scored a fluke goal from the right corner at 5:34, and the Mavs took a 3-2 lead on Joe Martin's power-play goal at 13:06.
MSU spent nine minutes of the middle period shorthanded, including a five-minute stretch due to a major penalty to freshman Dean Chelios for checking from behind.
The Spartans, however, capitalized on a power play to tie it 3-3 as Nick Sucharski tapped in a rebound at 8:04 of the third period.
Both teams had several excellent chances to score the rest of the third period and in overtime. But goalies Drew Palmisano (29 saves) of MSU and Nebraska-Omaha's Jeremie Dupont (22) made clutch saves.
Sophomore Mike Merrrifield and freshman Chris Forfar also scored for MSU, while Matt Ambroz and Brent Gwidt connected for the Mavs.
In the shootout, Andrew Rowe scored on MSU's second attempt and the Spartans had two chances to win it, but Dupont came up big to stop Sucharski and John Kemp then tied it 1-1 on UNO's third attempt.
After Merrifield missed, UNO's Terry Broadhust won it for the visitors.
"You'd love it to be perfect every night but it's not going to be that way,'' Comley said. "We're on to something here but we just have to suffer through some mistakes."
