Game Summary

WINONA, Minn. — For the fifth time this season, the Saint Mary's University men's soccer team scored first Saturday afternoon in its Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference game against Carleton at Ochrymowycz Field.

Only this time, they also scored second, and third, en route to a 5-3 victory that not only snapped a four-game winless streak, but also kept the Cardinals unbeaten (1-0-1) in conference play.

"I still wouldn't say that that was our best effort out there," said SMU coach Eric Luzzi. "But we did score five goals, and we did pick up a conference win, so those are definitely positives."

But … .

"Individually, we are still way too inconsistent," Luzzi said. "As a coaching staff, we don't know from day to day, who's going to show up and play up to their capabilities. We had some great efforts out there today, but we also had some people we weren't so great.

"We've got to get more consistent."

One of those great efforts came from freshman Mike Boland (Lake Zurich, Il..) who tallied three of SMU's four goals, including two in the first half as SMU built a 3-1 advantage.

Boland opened the scoring at the 8:06 mark, when he converted a penalty kick. Mike Lackey (Midland, Texas) made it 2-0 six minutes later on a beautiful individual effort that ended with a shot that snuck in just under the crossbar, and Boland followed up with his second goal at the 17:09 mark to give SMU what appeared to be a commanding three-goal cushion.

Carleton (0-2-0 MIAC, 2-4-1 overall), however, cut the gap to two, 3-1, when Kurt Bunnelle beat SMU goalie Bob Endemann (Woodridge, Ill.) with six minutes remaining in the first half. Boland and Adam Sapp (Winona, Minn.) traded second-half goals with Carleton's David Watson and Nadim Ilbawi, as the Cardinals refused to let the Knights get any closer than two goals over the final 45 minutes.

"I thought we played a great first 20 minutes," praised Luzzi. "But the last 15 minutes (of the half), we got careless. It was like everyone figured that, because we were up three goals, we didn't have to work anymore.

"I was pleased with the way our offense produced," continued Luzzi, whose team had scored just three goals in its last four games. "Hopefully this game got the monkey off our backs in terms of scoring goals. Hopefully this is the spark that we needed."

Hopefully.