The ride is over, in many ways of speaking, but Colorado College also begins a new one as of today.

Saturday's 3-2 loss to the University of Wisconsin at the Xcel Energy Center ended CC's miraculous run for the Broadmoor Trophy, an automatic bid to the national playoffs and, certainly not to be overlooked, avoiding the program's first sub-.500 season in 20 years.  

Playing six games in nine nights, against another team as hot and desperate as themselves, the Tigers made a valiant stand in their final game as a member of the WCHA and at the league's Final Five.

So close the book. Moving forward, from this point on, they're in the National Collegiate Athletic Conference.    

CC, which lost for the only the fifth time in 17 games since mid-January, finishes 18-19-5 overall despite senior center Rylan Schwartz recording his 20th goal of the season, the 100th assist of his career and earning all-tournament honors with sophomore defenseman Peter Stoykewych. Another heroic effort by senior goaltender Joe Howe, who made 30 saves, also went for naught.

The Badgers, meanwhile, improved to 22-12-7 overall after a horrific 1-7-2 start to the season and will represent the WCHA one last time in the national playoffs before switching to the Big Ten in 2013-14. They earned an automatic bid as Final Five champs, and will find out where they play next when the NCAA brackets are announced late Sunday.

UW, which out-shot the Tigers by a 33-22 margin, snapped a scoreless tie on a rebound goal by Tyler Barnes with 17 seconds left in the opening frame, then added a pair of second-period goals by Sean Little and Nic Kerdiles to make sophomore netminder Joel Rumpel's 20 stops stand up.  

Schwartz set up sophomore right winger Charlie Taft with a beautiful goalmouth feed, less than a minute after Archie Skalbeck hit the pipe to Rumpel's left, to pull CC to within 2-1 at 7:19 of the middle stanza.

Freshman left wing Kerdiles, who was named tournament MVP, knocked home John Ramage's rebound at 16:15, but with 27.6 seconds left in the period, Schwartz blazed past the Wisconsin defense after a big save by Howe to take a pass from Alexander Krushelnyski and make it 3-2 after 40 minutes of play.

Rumpel needed to make only four saves in the third period but got some help from the goalpost when Schwartz, cutting in from the left side, rang a shot off the near pipe with four minutes remaining. CC's Archie Skalbeck also hit metal behind Rumpel in the second period.