MSU had a 5-1 lead with just over 15 minutes to play in the game, but AIC scored three goals in just over ten minutes to make it a little closer than anticipated.

“We’re fortunate that we can enjoy the win, but there are things that we can improve on,” head coach Tom Anastos said. “At the same time it’s hard to enjoy. I don’t think everybody’s walking out of here feeling good about themselves.”

Sophomore forward Michael Ferrantino got the Spartans on the board five minutes into the game after a nice pass on the two-on-one from senior forward Dean Chelios.

Freshman forward JT Stenglein doubled the score while MSU was on the power play, with the first goal of his Spartan career after a shot from the right side directly off of a faceoff.

“It was good to put it past him and get the monkey off my back with the first one,” Stenglein said. “Since we came home, I kind of got my confidence up, and it’s finally good to get this (goal). Hopefully I keep this going the next few weeks.”

The second period saw goals from freshman forward Villiam Haag and senior forward Lee Reimer.

It was the first official goal for Haag, who also scored in the 4-1 exhibition win against Western Ontario.

Haag and Stenglein are roommates, but Haag said he wasn’t trying to show up his bunkmate.

“If he scores, I have to score,” he said. “We had a great energy and a great chemistry. It’s something we have to build on in a win. That gives a lot of energy to the team.”

Senior captain Greg Wolfe gave the Spartans a 5-1 lead early in the third, and he didn’t think that was going to be the game winning goal.

Sean Federow scored a powerplay goal to make the score 5-2. Jake Williams and Alexander MacMillan scored in the last five minutes to close the gap.

“Pretty much two and a half periods we liked most of game,” Anastos said. “We have to have a 60 minute effort from everybody. There was an obvious let down in the third period. We gave them life when they didn’t have much of it.”

The Spartans dominated the Yellow Jackets in the shot department, firing 47 pucks at the net compared to 22 by AIC.

The teams finish off the two game series at 1 p.m Sunday at Munn Ice Arena.

Wolfe said the team can’t go back to season’s past where they had trouble closing out games, and they can’t be cocky or careless against the Yellow Jackets on Sunday.

“You never want a team to come back like that in the third, but at the end of the day we have to make sure we’re learning how to close games out and put teams away,” Wolfe said. “It’s a problem we had in the past, but we’re working on it. We still won the game and we’re happy about that, but we can’t get overconfident.”