MARQUETTE, Mich. â€Â“ The Northern Michigan University hockey team was in a three-way tie for sixth place in the CentralCollegiate Hockey Association (CCHA) along with Nebraska-Omaha and Ohio State entering its game on Friday.  Also, the â€Â˜Cats in the next three weeks will playfive of their six games at the Berry Events Center.  The first game up on theschedule was against the University of Nebraska-Omaha Mavericks. 

UNO got two first period goals, which turned out to beenough as the visitors took one from the â€Â˜Cats 2-1.  With the loss the â€Â˜Catsare now 16-13-2 overall and 10-11-2 in the CCHA.  UNO improves to 16-11-4 and10-9-4 respectively.  â€ÂœWe played pretty well tonight.  We did not capitalize onour chances,â€Â Walt Kyle said.  â€ÂœI thought the bottom of our line-up up frontwas good.â€Â

Brandon Scero gave the Mavericks a 1-0 lead at 5:28.  ScottParse made the count 2-0 with his 18^th goal of the season at 18:17. Nathan Sigmund scored the â€Â˜Cats lone goal on the night at 6:04 of the secondperiod.  Patrick Murphy and Bobby Selden assisted on Sigmundâ€Â™s second goal ofthe season.  â€ÂœIt was great.  I wanted to get on the board as soon as we could,â€ÂSigmund said.  â€ÂœWe are a great offensive team as long as we have possession.â€Â

Jerad Kaufmann between the pipes for the Mavericks had 27saves on the night.  Bill Zaniboni for the â€Â˜Cats had 23 saves.  UNO was 1-7 onthe power play while NMU was 0-4.  Shots were almost even as NMU had a threeshot edge at 28-25.

The two teams will be a part of a tripleheader at the Berry Events Center tomorrow (Feb. 11).  The NMU womenâ€Â™s basketball team will get thingsstarted at 11 a.m. against Ferris State while the menâ€Â™s team will follow at 1p.m. against the Bulldogs.  The puck will then drop at 7:35 p.m. for the â€Â˜Catsand Mavericks.