DaytonDailyNews.com

OXFORD — Miami University's first postseason step may have been a bit shaky Friday night, March 13, but it was a success.

The RedHawks began Central Collegiate Hockey Association tournament play with a 3-2 victory over Northern Michigan, surviving a strong stretch drive by the visiting Wildcats.

"It's something that you drill a lot throughout the course of the year," MU coach Enrico Blasi said of the frantic final few minutes. "We had the right guys out there. I thought we did a good job of holding them off."

Justin Mercier, Carter Camper and Andy Miele all tallied goals for third-seeded Miami (20-10-5), which will try to end the best-of-three quarterfinal series tonight when the squads square off again at Steve Cady Arena. Game time is 7:05 p.m.

Justin Florek and Nick Sirota did the scoring for the Wildcats (16-16-5), who found a burst of life after falling behind 2-0 in the opening 15 minutes.

"I thought we played better as the game went along," said NMU coach Walt Kyle, whose sixth-seeded team got outshot 40-26. "We had our chances."

Asked if his team changed anything after the first stanza, Kyle replied, "We gave our head a shake."

Florek's second-period goal made it 2-1 heading to the third, and things got very interesting in the last four minutes.

With 3:31 remaining, Northern appeared to tie the score when a shot was rifled past Miami goalie Cody Reichard (24 saves). But the goal was disallowed when an interference penalty was called on Ben Lindemulder.

Miele then beat Wildcats goalie Brian Stewart (37 saves) to give the hosts a 3-1 advantage with 1:54 on the clock. It was MU's second power-play goal of the night.

Kyle was asked about the goal-erasing penalty and answered like this:

"I'm not sure if (the officials) saw it as clear as they think because they put the wrong guy in the box — all they've got to do is watch the tape," he said. "I don't agree with the penalty, but the league will tell you we've got great officials. I'll let them make those calls. But they should have a class on getting the right numbers. There's four people out there."

Kyle pulled Stewart after a RedHawks penalty with 1:27 left, and Sirota scored seven seconds later, unleashing a bullet from near the blue line.

The Wildcats had several more scoring opportunities from there (once again pulling Stewart), but couldn't conquer Reichard again.

"We had a couple kicks at it," Kyle said. "That's what you try to do."

Pat Cannone, Jarod Palmer, Chris Wideman, Tommy Wingels, Cameron Schilling and Miele all had assists for Miami, which played without senior defenseman Kevin Roeder. Blasi declined to describe his injury, but said he's day to day.

"We got some fortunate, opportunistic bounces in front of the net," Blasi said. "This is far from over. We did a lot of good things tonight, but there's still things we can do better."