Game Summary

WINONA, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University men's hockey team was making its first Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference playoff appearance in seven years when the Cardinals took the ice to face St. Olaf Tuesday evening.

The Oles, meanwhile, were making their first-ever postseason appearance under seventh-year head coach Sean Goldsworthy.

Yet, neither team played like an MIAC playoff neophyte — in fact, both the Cardinals and the Oles played like wily playoff veterans.

St. Olaf just did it a little better.

The Oles erupted for three third-period goals and held off a furious third-period SMU comeback, as St. Olaf eliminated Saint Mary's with a 5-3 victory at the SMU Ice Arena.

"What can you say? That was a great college hockey game," said SMU coach Don Olson, whose team — making its first playoff appearance since the 1996-97 season — closed out its season with a 13-11-2 overall record. "It's unfortunate that someone has to lose a game like that, and to be honest, it's even more unfortunate when it's you — but there certainly isn't any reason for any of our guys to hang their heads.

"We gave it everything we had, we left it all on the ice — in the end, that just wasn't quite enough."

The Cardinals dominated the opening 20 minutes, outshooting St. Olaf 16-7 and getting a goal by Jason Fillipp (Fox River Grove, Ill.) midway through the period as SMU took a 1-0 advantage into the locker room after one period.

The lead didn't last long, however, as Joe Ihrie and Dan Norsten scored less than two minutes apart early in the second period to give St. Olaf the lead for good, and Ihrie added his second of the night at 17:27 on a laser of a shot from the top of the circle that beat SMU goalie Curtis Nosal (Omaha, Neb.) to the glove side to give the Oles a 3-1 edge.

"When they scored those two goals back-to-back, that really took a lot of wind out of our sails," said Olson, whose team did get back to within one, 3-2, before the period ended as Eric Thom (Portland, Ore.) netted his fourth of the season with less than two minutes remaining in the period. "The momentum definitely shifted to their bench, but I think Eric's goal at the end of the period gave us new life — that goal reenergized us."

Wally Cisewski pushed St. Olaf's lead back to two, 4-2 when he scored midway through the third period, but again SMU bounced back, getting a goal from Marcus Reszka (Winona, Minn.) with three minutes to play to narrow the margin to 4-3.

St. Olaf's Mitch Mudra was then whistled for a cross-checking penalty at 18:30, and when Olson pulled Nosal for the extra attacker, SMU had a 6-on-4 advantage. Unfortunately for the Cardinals, Patrick Gilles picked up a loose puck in the St. Olaf zone and flipped a shot that found the empty net and sealed SMU's fate.

"That's one of the toughest parts of playoff hockey — when you lose, the finality of it is kind of overbearing," said Olson. "But this team showed so much character tonight — they never gave up, they never stopped working.

"They played their hearts out — it's just too bad it had to end like this.