“We stuck with the game plan throughout the whole 60 minutes,” junior defenseman Torey Krug said. “We got a few lucky bounces, and we were able to bury the puck. Overall, it was just a lot of fun to be out there tonight.”

Riding the momentum of Friday’s 5-2 victory against RMU, the Spartans (4-4-0, 1-3-0 CCHA) wanted to come out of the weekend strong heading into the month of November.

With tough upcoming games on the road against Western Michigan (Nov. 11-12) and Northern Michigan (Nov. 18-19), the value of a sweep at home was not to be understated.

The first period had the makings of a heavyweight boxing title fight as each team jockeyed for position early in the game.

The Colonials drew first blood as forward Tyler Hinds fired a rocket off a pass that got past Spartan goalie Drew Palmisano at 4:54 to give RMU the 1-0 lead. Less than a minute later, Reimer found the net for the first of three times on the evening by burying a goal to the right of Colonial goalie Brooks Ostergard to knot the game at one apiece.

Both teams traded blows once again later in the period. At 6:46, forward Cody Wydo beat Palmisano on his blocker-side to give RMU the lead.

However, the lead was short-lived as Reimer picked up the puck from Wolfe and senior forward Mike Merrifield and found the back of the net to tie the game 2-2 heading into the first intermission.

Palmisano made 17 saves on the evening en route to picking up his second individual victory of the season.

In the second period, the Spartans got a goal at 7:13 from Merrifield with an assist by Wolfe and Reimer. The goal marked the last time RMU was close for the rest of the contest.

“I felt the same as every other game, just staying focused,” Reimer said.

“It was a big game for our whole team. We just wanted to get a sweep this year and get rolling here, especially with our break next weekend. It’d be huge to get a sweep. And now we can keep practicing and go out that next week with lots of confidence.”

The rout was on in the third period as the Spartans would add three more goals to seal the game and the win, 6-2. The first came in the form of Reimer’s hat trick goal at 5:51 with assists to senior defenseman Matt Crandell and Wolfe. Freshman forward Matt Berry scored the first goal of his Spartan career on a smooth dish from senior forward Daultan Leveille to put MSU up 5-2. With less than two minutes to play, Merrifield capped his night with a goal off the sticks of Krug and Reimer to secure his second goal of the game.

The weekend was a success for the Spartan hockey team, in large part due to the output from the line combination of Reimer, Merrifield, Wolfe and junior forward Dean Chelios. In total, the Reimer-Merrifield-Wolfe-Chelios line had 21 points on the weekend and provided a much needed boost for the Spartan offense.

With a strong offensive night, the team certainly did its part to break some statistical streaks from past seasons. Reimer’s hat trick was the first for an MSU player since Krug’s hat trick in a 4-3 overtime win against Michigan in January. In addition, Wolfe’s four assists on the evening were the most since Oct. 24, 2005, when Bryan Lerg did it against Cornell.

As the team has close to two weeks before its next game action, head coach Tom Anastos expressed the importance of celebrating the weekend sweep before going back to work.

“Good 60 minutes of effort (Saturday) which is kind of interesting or kind of neat for us that we have a little bit of a break,” Anastos said. “I’m really happy for our team that we can come out of this on a winning side. I’ll let that linger for a while, while we kind of recharge our batteries a little bit.”