Michigan Tech’s Blake Pietila named CCHA Student-Athlete of the Year

Ben Raymond
·1 min read

HOUGHTON, Mich. (WJMN) – The list of honors and accomplishments for Michigan Tech goaltender Blake Pietila continues to grow. The Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA) announced Pietila as the conference’s 2023-24 Student-Athlete of the Year.

Pietila holds numerous school records:

  • Career wins

  • Career shutouts

  • Season shutouts (10)

  • Season goals-against average (1.81)

  • Season save percentage (.934)

  • Most games played.

Blake Pietila named CCHA Goaltender of the Year

As an alternative captain for the current season, Pietila stats with the Huskies are impressive.

  • 133 career games

  • 122 as a starter

  • 69-47-11 overall

  • 2.13 goals-against average

  • .921 save percentage

  • 21 shutouts

  • 3,146 saves.

The CCHA also provided the following list of academic accomplishments for Pietila.

A native of Howell, Mich., Pietila earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, is pursuing a Master of Business Administration and holds a 3.62 cumulative grade point average. 

For his senior design project as an undergraduate, Pietila worked with a worldwide steel manufacturer and a UK-based engineering firm to solve an issue involving the interior design of an autonomous electric vehicle. Aiding a team that helped find a way that would allow the vehicle to be converted from single use to multi-use, they were able to design, model, and are presently testing a system that allows for the vehicle to be efficiently transitioned from package/cargo to passenger transportation. His major contributions to this project included designing a custom T-rail system that will house a ball roller bearing, allowing for translational motion along the rails, as well as doing a Finite Element Analysis (FEA) on the locking pins that secure the mechanism into place.  

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