Game Summary

WINONA, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University men's soccer team battled St. Thomas to a 0-0 deadlock through the first half of Saturday's Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference game at Ochrymowycz Field.

Then the teams switched ends.

And the Tommies — and the wind — blew away the Cardinals.

UST scored a pair of goals 15 minutes apart, then held off a late SMU rally to hand the Cardinals a 2-1 setback.

"It may be a new day and a new game, but it's the same old story," said SMU coach Chris Dembiec, whose team dropped its fifth one-goal game in its last six contests. "I don't know what it is, but we just don't seem to kick our game into gear until we have a hole to dig out of.

"Once we fell behind (2-0 midway through the second half), we finally started doing some of the things we've been working on — but by that time, it's too late."

With the wind at their backs, the Cardinals struggled to generate any offense in the game's opening 45 minutes, but SMU's defense held firm, as the two teams took a 0-0 tie into the intermission.

Unlike the Cardinals, however, UST made the most of their time playing down-wind, attempting 12 second-half shots — including shots by Matt Michalik and Andy Gikling that beat SMU goalkeeper Jon Szafranski (Barrington, Ill.) and gave the Tommies at 2-0 advantage with just over 20 minutes remaining in regulation.

The Cardinals put an end to UST goalkeeper Daniel Hutton's shutout bid — and took their first step out of their most recent hole — as Andy Neu (Inver Grove Heights, Minn.) netted his third goal of the season at the 78-minute mark.

That was as close as SMU would get, however, as the Tommies held on to beat the Cardinals for the 34th time in the teams' 41 meetings all-time.

"I'm at a loss — I don't know what it takes for this team to play a full, 90-minute game," said Dembiec. "I thought the last 20 minutes of the second half, we played extremely well — we did the things we wanted to do and it paid off with Andy's goal.

"The problem is, you can't put yourselves in two-goal holes like that and expect to be able to dig out — it's just too hard."