Game Summary
WINONA, Minn. — There's a definite pattern developing for the Saint Mary's University men's hockey team.
Problem is, it's not the type of pattern SMU head coach Don Olson was hoping for.
For the fourth straight game, the Cardinals gave up four goals — and for the fourth straight game, when the final horn sounded, they were on the short end of the stick.
St. John's scored two goals in each of the first two periods and held off a late SMU charge en route to a 4-2 victory over the Cardinals Friday evening at the SMU Ice Arena.
"I just can't put my finger on the problem — it's not like we're playing poorly, we just can't seem to put it all together," said SMU coach Don Olson, whose team's season-high four-game slide started with a 4-2 loss to St. Thomas two weeks ago, then continued with 4-2 and 4-1 losses to Augsburg last weekend. "The problem is, when you start struggling a bit, everyone begins to press, and the little things that go wrong seem to get magnified."
Like the Cardinals inability to score more than two goals in a game.
It's certainly not for a lack of effort.
The Cardinals peppered SJU goalie Rick Gregory with 28 shots — marking the third time in their last four games that SMU has had the advantage in shots on goal — only to get a second-period goal from Al Schumacher (Oakdale, Minn.) and a third-period tally from Nick Meeker (Rochester, Minn.) to show for their efforts.
"We're generating plenty of scoring opportunities, we just can't seem to turn them into goals," admitted Olson, whose team dropped to 6-4-1 in the MIAC and 11-7-2 overall with the loss. "It's a lot like last weekend (against Augsburg), St. John's was very opportunistic — we didn't give them a lot of good scoring chances, but the ones we did give them, they capitalized on."
The Johnnies jumped out to a 1-0 advantage at the 10:22 mark of the first period as Mike Possin rifled a shot past SMU goalie Eric Richardson (Skokie, Ill.). SJU made it 2-0 six minutes later on Jeff Smoleroff's powerplay goal.
While the Johnnies were making the most of their nine first-period shots, none of the Cardinals' first eight shots found the back of the net.
Schumacher did pull the Cardinals to within 2-1 with his fifth of the season three minutes into the second period, but the Johnnies bounced right back, regaining their two-goal lead on Shane Taylor's shorthanded goal. Bryan Talbot pushed the SJU advantage to 4-1 before the second period ended, and Meeker's powerplay goal at the 5:39 mark of the third period was all the offense the Cardinals could muster.
"It's frustrating, no question about that," said Olson, whose team will look to snap out of their four-game slide Saturday afternoon in the second of their two-game MIAC series with the Johnnies. "The effort is there, it's just that no matter what we try, we're just missing — and that's the difference between winning and losing."
