The University of Minnesota Duluth capped off one of its most successful home seasons in program history Saturday night by taking down the University of Nebraska Omaha for a second consecutive night and sweeping the best-of-three National Collegiate Hockey Conference quarterfinal playoff series with the Mavericks.

Senior center  Peter Krieger, in his final AMSOIL Arena appearance, scored once and assisted on another goal in helping spark the Bulldogs to a 4-1 triumph and advance to next weekend's NCHC Frozen Faceoff in St. Paul.

Omaha, which fell 2-1 in overtime to the hosts in the playoff series opener on Friday, took a 1-0 lead midway through the first period, but it was all Bulldogs after that. Rookie center Jackson Cates scored the first of four unanswered UMD goals at the 11:46 mark of the first when he banged home a rebound that came off the end boards. At 7:14 of the second period, sophomore left winger Kobe Roth redirected sophomore defenseman Mikey Anderson's shot from the point and that power play goal proved to be the game winner. Freshman left winger Cole Koepke, off a perfect two-on-one feed from junior center Justin Richards, then buried a wrister that made it 3-1 with 5.8 seconds to go before the second intermission. Krieger's goal, his eighth of the season, came 6:11 into the third period.

"We had a much better game than last night", said UMD head coach Scott Sandelin.  "I thought our third period was very good and  the penalty kills in the second period were huge. Those gave us some momentum and then we got a big goal at the end of the period. That whole time frame was big for us because before that I thought the game could have gone either way"

2018-19 All-NCHC first team goaltender Hunter Shepard finished with 18 saves for the Bulldogs, who outshot the Mavericks 15-5 in the third period and 33-19 on the night. UMD has been outshot only four times in 36 games this season.

UMD finished 13-3-1 at home in 2018-19 and that .794 winning percentage was the fourth best ever turned in by a Bulldog club, bettered only the 1992-93 (.945), 1984-85 (.893), and 1973-74 teams (.800).