Sports

Two Mavericks from MSU Mankato honored by WCHA

The Mavericks' first road sweep of Wisconsin got noticed.

By Roman Augustoviz

November 28, 2012 at 1:08PM

Minnesota State Mankato stood tall last weekend, kicking Wisconsin when the Badgers were already down.

The purple Mavericks beat the Badgers twice at Kohl Center -- their first sweep there ever -- both times by 4-2 scores.

And on Tuesday, the WCHA named two MSU players among it players of the week.

Sophomore forward Matt Leitner from Los Alamitos, CA, was named the league's offensive player of the week. He had two goals and three assists in two games and was a plus-2.

He has three goals and 12 assists for 15 points this season.

Also nominated for that award were forwards Kyle Rau of the Gophers and Ryan Walters of Omaha.

The rookie of the week was goalie Stephon Williams of MSU. He is from Fairbanks, Alaska.

He stopped 32 shots the first game, 33 the second. So he was busy. He is 2-3-1 with a 2.46 goals-against average and a .910 save percentage.

Freshman winger A.J. Michaelson of the Gophers was another nominee for the rookie award. He had his first goal and first assist again Vermont last weekend.

Named the defensive player of the week in the WCHA was St. Cloud State goalie Ryan Faragher. He stopped 59 of 62 shots as the Huskies split with Minnesota Duluth. UMD won the first game 2-1, SCSU won the second 5-1.

Faragher is 6-5-0 with a 2.14 gaa and a .927 save percentage.

Other nominees for this award were Gophers goalie Adam Wilcox and UNO defenseman Bryce Aneloski.

ETC.

* Freshman forward Joey Benik, who broke his leg during the Huskies first practice, is skating this week. There is a chance he could play for SCSU when they play Colorado College on Dec. 14-15.

* Also according to the St. Cloud Times, the Huskies recently received a commitment from Brendan Harris. The 5-7, 140-pound center plays for the California Titans, a AAA midget team. He is 16.

* Notre Dame coach Jeff Jackson got fined and reprimanded by the CCHA for critciizing officials after the Irish lost 2-1 to North Dakota last Friday. According to the Grand Forks Herald, Jackson was upset the officials blew the whistle early, thereby disallowing what would have been a late tying goal by Anders Lee. "It was just an awful call," Jackson said. And he paid the price for speaking out.