Game Summary

WINONA, Minn. — Talk about a case of bad timing.

The Saint Mary's University men's hockey team had what appeared to be a golden opportunity to pull even with St. Thomas late in the third period of Friday's Minneesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference game at the SMU Ice Arena.

The Cardinals, already 3-for-4 on the power play for the night, were given their fifth powerplay opportunity when UST's Kevin Rollwagen was whistled for a holding penalty with 4:19 remaining in regulation and the Tommies clinging to a 5-4 advantage.

Unfortunately for the Cardinals, instead of netting powerplay goal No. 4, SMU gave up its first shorthanded goal of the season as Dustin Lick broke in alone on SMU goalie Curtis Nosal (Omaha, Neb.) and beat the Cardinal sophomore high to the stick side to ice the Tommies' 6-4 win.

"It was like whatever could go wrong (down the stretch) did," said SMU coach Don Olson, whose team had rallied from a two-goal second-period deficit to tie the game 4-4 midway through the third period, only to give up two unanswered goals in falling to 3-2-0 in the MIAC. "Our power play was outstanding and then we make a mistake — a bad decision on a pass — and, boom, we've given up our first shorthanded goal of the season.

"We just made too many careless mistakes," continued Olson. "And everytime we made a mistake, (St. Thomas) made us pay for it."

Dan Krmpotich and SMU's Lenny Hofmann (Sartell, Minn.) traded first-period goals, and Krmpotich netted his second of the game four minutes into the second period to give UST a 2-1 advantage. Al Schumacher (Oakdale, Minn.) pulled the Cardinals even again, but back-to-back goals by Dustin Lick and Anthony Blumer 51 seconds apart late in the period gave the Tommies a 4-2 lead heading into the game's final 20 minutes.

SMU quickly dug themselves out of that two-goal hole, as Marcus Reszka (Winona, Minn.) and Jason Fillipp (Fox RIver Grove, Ill.) scored before the third period was even four minutes old to knot the game at four.

From there, however, it was all UST, as Nick Harris netted the eventual game-winner at the 7:36 mark, and Lick locked up the Tommies' third straight win with his shorthanded breakaway 10 minutes later.

"I was pleased to see us bounce back in the third period like we did, but overall, I was a little disappointed in the effort we put forth," admitted Olson. "Playing St. Thomas is always such a huge rivalry for us — we had a great crowd with a lot of energy — and yet, we came out and just did not play hard.

"It was almost like we were just waiting for something bad to happen," continued Olson, whose team has now dropped four straight to the Tommies, who are 7-1-2 in their last 10 games. "I don't think man for man (St. Thomas) is any better than we are — but tonight they sure played like they were."