ANN ARBOR, Mich. â€Â“ What a difference aday makes.  Last night the Northern Michigan University hockey team could donothing wrong against the Michigan Wolverines.  Tonight at Yost Ice Arena theWolverines jumped out to a 3-0 lead on the â€Â˜Cats and won the game, 3-1, tosplit the series.  NMU falls to 13-8-5 overall on the season and 11-6-3 in theCCHA.  UM improves to 20-7-1 and 17-3-0 respectively.  In the â€Â˜Cats eightlosses this season they have scored only one goal in seven of the games andwere shutout in the other game. 

UM jumped out to a 3-0 lead by scoring twice in the firstperiod and adding a marker in the final frame.  Eric Nystrom scored apower-play goal at 4:24 of the opening period to give the home team the quick1-0 lead.  Kevin Porter added another power-play goal at 11:28 of the firstperiod for the 2-0 lead.  On the night the Wolverines were 2-8 with the extraattacker.  Milan Gajic scored the third and final goal for UM at 2:33 of thethird period. 

Jamie Milam scored the lone goal for the â€Â˜Cats on the nightat 11:54 of the third period.  It was Milamâ€Â™s first goal of the season that wasnot scored on the power play.  Kevin Gardner assisted on the goal. 

The Wolverine penalty kill unit shutout the â€Â˜Cats on fourattempts.  UM had 11 more shots than the â€Â˜Cats on the night at 31-20.  TuomasTarkki had 28 saves on the night.  His counterpart from UM, Al Montoya,backstopped 19 shots.

The â€Â˜Cats will begin a five-game homestand next weekend whenAlaska Fairbanks will call at the Berry Events Center for two games (Feb. 4-5).