Game Summary

WINONA, Minn. — So close.

So very, very close.

Unfortunately for the Saint Mary's University men's hockey team, close just won't cut it.

The Cardinals gave UW-River Falls — ranked No. 2 nationally — all it could handle Saturday night, but in the end, the Falcons left the SMU Ice Arena with a 5-4 nonconference win.

No, make that escaped with a 5-4 win.

"We had them on the ropes," said SMU coach Don Olson. "We had them pretty rattled going into the third period, but we let them off the hook. We lost our composure a bit and it came back to haunt us."

The Cardinals were whistled for eight penalties — and when a team is scoring on 30 percent of its powerplays, giving them five powerplay opportunities is not exactly what you want to be doing.

"You can't give a team like River Falls — or any team for that matter — that many powerplay chances," said Olson. "You can't just kill, kill, kill (penalties) all night and not pay for it."

And pay for it the Cardinals did.

After killing off the first three River Falls powerplays, the Cardinals went to the well once too often in the third period.

Make that twice too often.

River Falls scored on both of its powerplay opportunities in the third period, turning a 2-1 SMU lead into a 5-3 Falcon advantage with six minutes remaining in regulation.

Lenny Hofmann (Sartell, Minn.), who scored SMU's first goal early in the second period to pull the Cardinals into a 1-1 tie, netted his second of the game at the 18:50 mark to make it a 5-4 contest, but the Cardinals couldn't get the equalizer — despite several chances in the final seconds.

"It's a tough game to lose, but it was a great, great hockey game," said Olson, whose team had its four-game winning streak snapped with the loss. "We played very well, as did (River Falls). I think it just came down to who was going to make the fewest mistakes. We knew they were going to earn their (scoring) opportunities, but we also gave them some and they cashed them in."

The Falcons scored the only goal of the first period, but the Cardinals stormed back in the second as Hofmann and Sam Phillips (Red Wing, Minn.) beat UW-River Falls goalie Dan Meneghin less than two minutes apart to give SMU a 2-1 lead heading into the final 20 minutes.

Aaron Degerness and Josh Schlipp scored goals two minutes apart to give the Falcons a 3-2 lead, but B.J. Gaustad (Portland, Ore.) responded two minutes later to tie the game at 3-3. A pair of goals by Jim Murphy — the second the Falcons' second powerplay goal of the period — pushed UW-RF's lead to 5-3.

"We did a lot of good things out there," said Olson, whose team heads into the Christmas break with an 8-3-0 overall record. "Hopefully they're learning just how could this team can be. But in order to reach that potential, we can't be careless.

"Careless penalties are what hurt us the most — that could have been the difference between a 5-4 loss and a 5-4 win."

So close — oh, so close.