Game Summary

WINONA, Minn. —It may be early in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference season, but after Friday's 5-3 loss to St. Olaf, Saturday's rematch with the Oles was a pretty important game.

Maybe not quite a must-win situation, but it was very close.

And with their backs to the wall, the Cardinals came out swinging, scoring the game's first six goals en route to a 6-1 victory at the SMU Ice Arena.

"I'm going to get a little philosophical here — this was an important game not in that we had to win, but as a team, we needed to play hard for 60 minutes and we did that," said SMU coach Don Olson. "It was also important that all 19 guys that played worked hard and gave a complete effort, and we did that."

The Cardinals also showed just how dangerous a team they can be when everyone is on the same page.

"This is as close to a complete team effort as we've had all season," said Olson, whose team moved to 4-4-1 overall with Saturday's win. "Everyone played well — from the goaltender on up."

Speaking of the goaltender, Curtis Nosal (Omaha, Neb.) certainly did his share in giving the Cardinals conference win No. 1. Not only did he stop the first 25 shots he faced — but he also stymied the Oles on three breakaway attempts in the game's opening two periods.

"Curtis played extremely well,' praised Olson "He made some big saves for us when we needed them most. You never want to give up breakaways like that, but if you have to, it's good to have Curtis in there — he's our best goalie on breakaways."

Which was good news for SMU, but bad news for the Oles' Dan Norsten and Wally Cisewski.

Norsten was thwarted by Nosal twice — the first on a sprawling glove save late in the first period with SMU nursing a 1-0 lead, and the second on a pad save midway through the second period. Cisewski was equally as unlucky, as Nosal stoned his second-period breakaway attempt as well.

And while Nosal was doing his part at one end, the Cardinals' offense was doing theirs on the other.

Devin Bloom (Hartford, S.D.) opened the scoring 40 seconds into the first period and the Cardinals never looked back. Lenny Hofmann (Sartell, Minn.) and Eric Thom (Portland, Ore.) added second-period tallies, and Nick Meeker (Rochester, Minn.), Jason Fillipp (Fox River Grove, Ill.) and Chad Damerow (Albert Lea, Minn.) gave the Cardinals a commanding 6-0 advantage with five minutes remaining in the third period.

St. Olaf's John Egge spoiled Nosal's bid for his first career shutout, scoring a powerplay goal with 3:11 left in regulation.

"We needed this win,"' admitted Olson, whose team is now off until Jan. 2-3, when they host Milwaukee School of Engineering in a two-game nonconference series. "This is the type of game that shows these guys what they can accomplish with hard work."