Game Summary

DEPERE, Wis. — During the first weekend of competition between the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference and the Northern Collegiate Hockey Association, the MIAC posting an impressive 10-6-2 record.

Which was good news for the MIAC, but bad news for the Saint Mary's University men's hockey team, because one of those wins was a 7-4 victory by Augsburg over St. Norbert.

All that did was make the Green Knights mad.

And they took out their frustrations on the Cardinals Friday evening, as St. Norbert erupted for four goals in both the second and third periods to break open a close game and cruised to an 11-3 nonconference win.

"Augsburg certainly didn't do us any favors, did they?," kidded SMU coach Don Olson. "St. Norbert came out tonight and really took it to us. They are a very good team — we knew that coming in — and they certainly proved it tonight.

"I thought we came out pretty strong early, but we couldn't sustain that level of intensity," said Olson, whose team had the game's first five shots, but by the time the first period ended, they were trailing 3-0. "We made three big mistakes in that first period and all three of them came back to haunt us. You can't afford to make mistakes like we did against a team like (St. Norbert)."

SMU cut the Green Knights' lead to 3-1 on a goal by Andy Roberts (Rochester, Minn.), but St. Norbert pushed the lead back to 4-1 a minute later. The Cardinals once against made it a two-goal game on a goal by Marcus Reszka (Winona, Minn.), but the Green Knights responded with back-to-back powerplay goals to make it 6-2 — and the Cardinals never recovered.

"It's frustrating," admitted Olson, whose team has now been outscored 21-4 in its last two games in falling to 0-2-1 overall. "This team is capable of playing much better than they have. Some how, we've got to figure out a way to get them to raise their games up — and fast."