WSU men’s club hockey (4-12) secured the last playoff spot in the PAC-8 Championship after sweeping the USC Trojans (5-11) on Jan. 20–21.

The Cougars, led by their season-leading scorer Jake Landers, will sneak into the playoffs this season for the first time since 2016, in which they were the No. 4 seed.

In their most recent games Jan. 27–28, WSU fell to Eastern Washington 5-2 and 5-4, respectively. 

In the weekend’s first matchup, WSU had help in the form of goals by forward Landers and defenseman Beamish. This, however, was not enough to keep up with the Eagle’s forward Kaiser Reed, who managed four goals across the three periods.

The Cougs refused to go down without a fight in the latter game on Saturday, with Landers again scoring two alongside his teammates Tucker Spino and Ian Gould, each with one goal. Their efforts would continue to not be enough to topple EWU.

The PAC-8 Championship tournament will be held Feb. 9–12 in Cheney. WSU will play its first game of the tournament against University of Washington at 1 p.m. Feb. 10.