MILWAUKEE, Wis. â€Ã‚“ The Northern Michigan Wildcatsstepped onto the national stage on Sunday night in the first round of the BankOne Badger Hockey Showdown.  The â€Ã‚˜Catsfaced Harvard of the ECAC as the Crimson was ranked 12^th in bothnational hockey polls as the â€Ã‚˜Cats were ranked 15^th in bothpolls. 

NMU scored two goals in the second period and added one inthe third for the 3-2 win over the Crimson. The â€Ã‚˜Cats are now 10-6-1 overall and will play the winner of theWisconsin/Colgate game on Monday night in the championship game.  Harvard is now 9-5-1 overall on theseason. 

For the â€Ã‚˜Cats this is their third trip to the championshipgame of the Badger Hockey Showdown.  NMUhas yet to win a championship game as Wisconsin has stood in the way eachtime.  The Badgers and Wildcats metearlier in the season in Madison as the home team won 4-3.

Mike Stutzel and power play goals go hand-in-hand as heleads the â€Ã‚˜Cats in that category. Stutzel scored the first goal of the game on the power play to give NMUthe early 1-0 lead.  For Stutzel it washis 13^th goal of the season as he was assisted by Bryce Cockburn andChris Gobert.  Dan Donnette would givethe â€Ã‚˜Cats the 2-0 lead with his fifth goal of the season at 11:14 of the secondperiod.  The Crimson would tally twogoals towards the end of the period to make it even at two all after twoperiods of play.  The Crimsonâ€Ã‚™s secondgoal came with one second left in the period.

Cockburn would hit for the game-winner 47 seconds into thethird period.  Dirk Southern and MikeStutzel assisted on the game-winning goal.

Craig Kowalski went the distance for the â€Ã‚˜Cats as he stopped36 of the 38 shots that he faced. Harvard had more shots on goal than the â€Ã‚˜Cats by a 38 to 29 margin.