Cardinals' scoring chances not enough

Donny Nadeau, SMU Sports Information Office

Box Score

WINONA, Minn. — With Mother Nature dumping inches upon inches of snow, it took the Gustavus women's hockey team an extra-long time to get from St. Peter, Minn., to Winona, Minn., for Friday's Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference game against Saint Mary's.

And after watching the Gusties dominate his Cardinals for 60 minutes, SMU coach Duncan Ryhorchuk probably wished the Gusties bus had gotten stuck in a snow bank.

The Gusties pelted the Cardinals with 59 shots on goal en route to their ninth straight MIAC win, a 4-0 decision at the SMU Ice Arena.

"They are a very, very good team," said Ryhorchuk, whose team had its two-game winning streak snapped in dropping to 4-5-0 in the MIAC and 6-8-0 overall. "They pretty much dominated the play, but to be honest, I thought our performance was one of the better efforts we've had all year."

In fact, had the Cardinals gotten a break or two — despite the 59-8 Gustie advantage in shots on goal — the score could have very easily been 4-4.

Really.

"When you look at the scoresheet, it looks pretty bad, but when you look at the chances we had, we could have very easily picked up three or four goals," said Ryhorchuk, whose team missed three breakaways, and Melissa Mondo was stymied on the doorstep early in the second period. "This was a game that could have been 4-4, or it could have been 8-0."

GAC jumped out to a 2-0 first-period lead on goals by Ingrid Neve and Molly Doyle. Neve would added her second of the game and team-leading 12th of the season early in the second period, and Doyle would close out the scoring with her second of the game at the 6:31 mark of the third period.

"You hate to keep sounding like a broken record, but we've got to start taking advantage of the scoring chances we get," said Ryhorchuk. "Three breakaways and we didn't score on any of them. With (goalie) Nikki (Jung) playing as well as she did, it's unfortunate that we weren't able to give her any offensive support.

"We had a chance to steal (a win), but we couldn't get the job done."

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