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Michigan State\u2019s Anthony Romani plays during an NCAA hockey game on Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025, in East Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo\/Al Goldis)<\/p>\nGRAND RAPIDS\u00a0\u2014 When Michigan State and Michigan Tech met in the Great Lakes Invitational championship game two years ago, the Spartans lost a heartbreaker in the shootout. This year, they finally got revenge.<\/p>\n
Led by two goals from tournament MVP Charlie Stramel and 32 saves from goaltender Trey Augustine, No. 3 Michigan State handled Michigan Tech, 4-1, in Monday\u2019s GLI championship game at Van Andel Arena.<\/p>\n
Stramel\u2019s MVP honors came as four Spartans made the all-tournament team including Augustine, forward Anthony Romani and defenseman Patrick Geary. Michigan Tech forward Stiven Sardarian and defenseman Jack Anderson also earned those honors.<\/p>\n
Michigan State (14-4-0) is the first team to win back-to-back GLI titles since Michigan won in 2014 and 2015. The Spartans last won consecutive tournaments in a four-year streak from 1997 to 2000. It\u2019s Michigan State\u2019s 14th GLI title, second most among participants.\u00a0 \u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year when we won it, we hadn\u2019t won it in over 15 years, and this was the first time in 25 years we went back to back,\u201d Michigan State coach Adam Nightingale said. \u201cSo it\u2019s a hard tournament to have success, and there\u2019s always good teams here.\u201d<\/p>\n
What ended in a comfortable win for Michigan State started as a goaltender\u2019s dream. Neither netminder erred in the first period as Augustine made 10 saves and Michigan Tech\u2019s Owen Bartoszkiewicz made 14 saves.<\/p>\n
Michigan Tech (11-7-2) got some strong shifts from its offensive dynamo Sardarian, a Russian winger whose 29 points rank third in the country. He fed linemate Isaac Gordon for a jam play on Augustine\u2019s blocker side in the first period but the puck bounced. Michigan State had a couple of chances in tight too, including one for forward Gavin O\u2019Connell.<\/p>\n
Michigan State\u2019s Anthony Romani plays during an NCAA hockey game on Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025, in East Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo\/Al Goldis)<\/p>\n
Michigan State finally cracked Bartoszkiewicz a little over halfway through the second period. As defenseman Colin Ralph fired the puck toward the net from the left side, Romani laid his stick out near the faceoff circle and tipped the puck at a funky angle. The puck slipped past Bartoszkiewicz\u2019s five hole and gave Michigan State a 1-0 lead with 9:36 to play in the second period.<\/p>\n
If Bartoszkiewicz felt bad about letting that goal in, he robbed one right back. From behind the net, Romani fed a streaking Stramel wide open in the slot, and Stramel had plenty of open net to shoot. But Bartoszkiewicz flashed his glove to keep it 1-0.<\/p>\n
But Stramel would have the last laugh, or rather, laughs. With two minutes left in the third period, Stramel bounced a loose puck at the goal line off Bartoszkiewicz for the 2-0 lead and his third goal of the tournament. Then he added another goal three minutes into the third period to set a career high in goal scoring with 10 on the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s good on the forecheck, he\u2019s up and down the ice, and he\u2019s a really skilled player as well,\u201d Romani said after spending most of the tournament as Stramel\u2019s linemate. \u201cSo it makes my job easy playing with him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michigan Tech drew closer with a goal from defenseman Jack Anderson, his second of the tournament. On a poor clear by Michigan State defenseman Owen West, he handled the puck and sent a point blast toward Augustine, where teammate Carson Latimer tipped it into the net. Augustine had made 30 saves before then, but the 31st shot finally got through him.<\/p>\n
Augustine only had to make two more saves in the final 11 minutes of the game as his defense did most of the work in front of him. Michigan Tech had some chances \u2014 on the one save Augustine did have to make, he stretched his pad to stop Huskies forward Tom Leppa with five minutes to go, and he held firm against the rebound try.<\/p>\n
For Augustine, playing in Van Andel Arena might be a little foreshadowing. The Detroit Red Wings draft pick stayed in college instead of signing pro after last season\u2019s opening round loss as a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. When he turns pro, there\u2019s a good chance he\u2019ll be playing here with Grand Rapids.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, that\u2019d be very nice,\u201d Augustine said.<\/p>\n
Even against an extra attacker with Bartoszkiewicz pulled, Michigan State\u2019s defense didn\u2019t give up a shot. And with 1:05 to play, forward Tommi Mannisto scored an empty netter to seal the win.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, the guys aren\u2019t happy with the result. It stings,\u201d Michigan Tech coach Bill Muckalt said, \u201cand you gotta give credit. Tip your hat to the other team. They did a lot of good things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miami takes third-place game<\/p>\n
The crowd might have been thin, but the hockey wasn\u2019t as Miami outlasted a scrappy Ferris State team in a 4-2 win to take third place in its first ever GLI appearance.<\/p>\n
Defenseman Ryder Thompson and center Max Helgeson scored a pair of goals in the second period that put Miami (11-7-2) in control, though Ferris State (4-16-0) led the shot column 32-22. And though a goal from Max Itagaki with four minutes to play made the third period interesting, an empty netter sealed the game for Miami.<\/p>\n
Miami also got a big boost in net from Mathis Langevin, who made his NCAA debut after joining the RedHawks at Christmas. A year ago, the Quebec-born goaltender planned to become a police officer before Rimouski picked up his rights in the QMJHL. He went 21-6-1 for Rimouski including a runner-up finish in the QMJHL playoffs and three games in the Memorial Cup. Now, his hockey journey continues in college after starting the year with Rimouski.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GRAND RAPIDS\u00a0\u2014 When Michigan State and Michigan Tech met in the Great Lakes Invitational championship game two years…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[60845,60836,1327,166,60837,60839,60840,1268,795,60846,60847,143,904,145,144,127,60841,225,60848,60842,796,60849],"class_list":["post-113444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-ann-arbor","tag-clare-county","tag-college-sports","tag-county","tag-gratiot-county","tag-isabella-county","tag-livingston-county","tag-macomb-county","tag-michigan","tag-monroe-county","tag-northern-michigan","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-county","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-sports","tag-st-clair-county","tag-state","tag-sub-county-region","tag-washtenaw-county","tag-wayne-county","tag-west-michigan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}