Mick Berge shot the puck from a low angle toward the empty net only to see Geoff Irwin swoop in and tip it into the goal to seal No. 18 Minnesota State’s 4-2 win over Bemidji State Saturday night.

Berge lost the goal but recorded his third assist of the night. He also had a couple of harsh words for his teammate:

Like, “Thank you.”

“I would take a win over any stat for myself any day,” said Berge, who admitted that he wasn’t certain if his shot was going to score.

Before an Alltel Center crowd of 4,174, Minnesota State completed the series sweep over Bemidji to go 2-0-0 for the first time since 1998.

However, finishing off the Beavers was anything but easy, which is why Berge was glad Irwin made certain of the win with 23.4 seconds to go.

The Mavericks led 3-0, and goalie Mike Zacharias appeared to be well on the way to his seventh career shutout. But the Beavers cut it back to a one-goal game by scoring with 2:12 and 1:45 remaining.

“We did some things tonight that you can’t do if you’re going to be successful over the course of the season,” MSU coach Troy Jutting said. “But it says a little something about our team that we didn’t play at the top of our game but were still able to win.”

Zacharias (29 saves) and Bemidji goalie Orlando Alamano (33 saves) were both pitching shutouts before Mavericks junior Zach Harrison broke the seal with 5:20 remaining in the second period.

Five minutes earlier, Alamano made an acrobatic save with an extra-effort flail of his glove to stop what looked to be a sure penalty shot by Irwin.

“Geoff made a fantastic move, and the goalie made a fantastic save,” Jutting said.

“Unbelievable,” Beavers coach Tom Serratore said. “The game was entertaining on the bench, so it had to be in the stands.”

The Mavericks made it 2-0 at 5:09 of the third period when sophomore defenseman Kurt Davis fired in a rocket from the point during a 5-on-3 power play for the second goal of his career.

Penalties were the order of the weekend, and the Mavericks killed off two two-man disadvantages totaling more than two minutes on Saturday.

Shortly after killing the latter 5-on-3 midway through the third period, Minnesota State made it 3-0 when Jason Wiley crashed the net and put back the rebound of a Berge shot. Davis also assisted on the play for his fourth point of the weekend.