Game Summary

WINONA, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University men's hockey team kicked off its season in impressive fashion, posting a 5-2 victory over Hamline in a Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference game at the SMU Ice Arena Friday.

B.J. Gaustad (Portland, Ore.) scored two goals and added an assist, and Lenny Hofmann (Sartell, Minn.) and Jason Fillipp (Fox River Grove, Ill.) each added a goal and an assist as the Cardinals rallied from a 2-1 first-period deficit to post the season-opening victory.

"For a first game, I was pleased with a number of things we did tonight," said SMU coach Don Olson, who was honored for recording his 300th career victory prior to Friday's game. "We created a number of great scoring opportunities. To have 47 shots on goal is a testament to how well we worked offensively, but to only score five goals shows that we still need a little work finishing around the net."

And staying out of the penalty box.

The Cardinals were whistled for 14 penalties, including five each in the second and third periods.

"We have to control our emotions a little better than we did tonight," said Olson. "A lot of the penalties we took were because we let our emotions get the better of us."

Hofmann opened the scoring for the Cardinals at the 8:32 point of the first period, but the lead was short-lived as Hamline rebounded with back-to-back goals from Tim Steffen and Mike Johnson before the first period ended to give the Pipers a 2-1 advantage.

Gaustad sandwiched his first two collegiate goals around a Mark Gryniewski (Shoreview, Minn.) tally, and Fillipp closed out the scoring early in the third period as SMU scored four unanswered goals to seal the win.

Eric Richardson (Skokie, Ill.) picked up the victory in goal for SMU, stopping 17 of the 19 shots he faced, while Robert Fuchs finished with 42 saves for the Pipers.