DULUTH, Minn. – The University of Minnesota Duluth completed their first weekend series sweep of the season on Sunday evening, topping Western Michigan University, 4-1. The Bulldogs improve to 8-5-2 on the season while the Broncos fall to 5-10-3. Two UMD skaters, sophomore forward Ben Almquist and freshman defenseman Connor Kelley, netted their first goals of their collegiate careers in the victory.

Freshman goaltender Zach Stejskal grabbed his second win on the season, stopping 24 of 25 shots in his third start of the season. WMU's goaltender Alex Aslanidis started the game and was scored on twice making six saves in the first frame, with goaltender Austin Cain finishing the final two periods making 10 saves and giving up one goal. Aslanidis is credited with the loss. Stejskal now carries a 2-1-0 record on the season, with a .944 save percentage and a 1.30 goals against average.

"I thought the first five minutes they came out, which we knew they would, and we kind of weathered it," said head coach Scott Sandelin. "Zach made some saves and we got a big penalty kill that I thought gave us some momentum and then we went on to score those goals. I thought the last fifteen minutes, we were playing very well. For the most part, it was a good game for us and it was a little bit different game than last night."

The Bulldogs got things rolling in the first, with junior forward Cole Koepke netting his fourth goal of the year 7:31 into the period. Sophomore forward Quinn Olson roped a pass to junior forward Tanner Laderoute. Laderoute skated deep into the Broncos' zone, around the net and dished to Koepke. Koepke hammered the puck on his short side past Aslanidis.

"It's been a handful of games since I got one in and it was just a great play by Tanner," said junior forward Cole Koepke. "It feels great for our team to get those two wins coming off of this little break and that was exactly what we needed."

Almquist followed with one of his own just 1:07 later. Freshman forward Blake Biondi got the puck to sophomore forward Luke Loheit, who shot the puck into a WMU defender. The puck bounced to Almquist, who corralled it and pulled it to his backhand, where he roofed it by Aslanidis for a 2-0 lead. Kelley made it a 3-0 game before the first closed out. Senior forward Nick Swaney dished across the neutral zone to Kelley, who made a give and go play with Olson. Kelley found himself driving in all alone against Aslanidis. He made a swift backhand-forehand move and found an open net with 2:12 to go in the period.

"It was a great play starting with Cairns. He passed it to Swaney and Swaney just came back a little bit, found me, and I kicked it out to Quinn. He made a great pass to me and I found myself on a little breakaway so I just had to finish the job," said freshman defenseman Connor Kelley. "It feels great. It was a good weekend overall and we're just looking to push forward and have a good weekend next weekend."

The second opened up quickly with the Broncos scoring 2:22 into the period. While on the man advantage, the Broncos moved the puck around when it eventually found WMU forward Ty Glover in front. Glover hammered away until he found space behind Stejskal, cutting the Broncos deficit to two. Junior forward Noah Cates countered with a special teams goal of his own. Freshman defenseman Wyatt Kaiser was battling in WMU's corner and finally popped the puck to N. Cates. N. Cates then pushed it up to Swaney, who gave it back to N. Cates, who walked into the circles and fired the puck short side to take a 4-1 lead 3:29 into the second.

Scoring would go quiet for the rest of the period and the game. The Broncos finished the game with 25 shots while the Bulldogs finished with 20.

Swaney and Olson both finish with two assists. Almquist, N. Cates, Kelley and Koepke all finish with a goal. Biondi, Kaiser, Laderoute and Loheit all finish with one assist.

UMD will play again next weekend, traveling outside of Minnesota for the first time since the National Collegiate Hockey Conference Pod. The Bulldogs head to the Miami University (OH), playing on Jan. 29 & 30.