Game Summary

WINONA, Minn. — On Jan. 7, the Saint Mary's University women's hockey team traveled to Eau Claire, Wis., to take on UW-Eau Claire in a nonconference game.

The Cardinals hadn't played in nearly a month, and it showed, as the Blugolds dominated fro start to finish, outshooting SMU 38-15 en route to the 4-0 victory.

Saturday afternoon at the SMU Ice Arena, the same two teams squared off again, and again, the Blugolds were dominating, outshooting SMU 31-12 — including 17-3 in the first period.

This time around, however, the Cardinals took advantage of the scoring opportunities they did create, scoring once in the second period and adding two powerplay goals in the third to beat UW-EC, 3-0, and earn a split in their two-game series.

Val Rodriguez (Woodbury, Minn.) and Madeline Loftus (Parsippany, N.J.) each scored their first goals as Cardinals — Rodriguez's an unassisted tally in the second period and Loftus' 13 minutes into the third period on the powerplay — as SMU snapped its two-game losing streak and improved to 7-9-0 overall.

Aja Walters (Fairmont, Minn.) closed out the scoring for SMU, netting her fourth of the season with less than two minutes remaining in regulation.

While SMU's sharpshooters hitting the bullseye on the offensive end, Cardinal goalie Nikki Jung (Inver Grove Heights, Minn.) was doing her best imitation of a brick wall on the other end, stopping all 31 shots she faced for her third shutout of the season.