NORTHFIELD, Minn. — Heading into their weekend series against St. Olaf, the Saint Mary's University women's hockey team was sitting in sixth place in the conference standings – one point behind Augsburg and three behind St. Olaf and Bethel.

When the final horn sounded Saturday evening, the red-hot Cardinals had leapfrogged into fourth place – leaving both the Auggies and the Oles eating their dust.

SMU completed its Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference sweep of St. Olaf Saturday, getting goals from four different players en route to a 4-3 win — a win that, coupled with Augsburg's two losses to Gustavus, put the Cardinals in the driver's seat in their quest for a sixth straight MIAC playoff appearance.

"It was a good weekend for us," understated SMU coach Terry Mannor, whose team dropped the Oles 3-1 on Friday and pushed its unbeaten streak to eight straight with the back-to-back wins over the Oles. "We're not getting too hyped up about the playoffs, because there's still way too much work ahead of us.

"We've talked about it a little — I've explained the obvious, which is we've put ourselves in a position to make the postseason, but we can't afford to get too caught up in it," continued Mannor. "We have to focus on taking it one game at a time — all we can worry about is controlling what we can control, and that's how we play."

And how the Cardinals played on Saturday was impressive.

After what Mannor tabbed "a sluggish start," in which St. Olaf jumped out to a 2-1 first-period advantage, the Cardinals took control, scoring three times — on goals by Amy Madden (East Grand Rapids, Mich.), Rachel Harrison (Madison, Wis.) and Melissa Mondo (Vadnais Heights, Minn.) —  in the first three minutes of the second period, to take a 4-2 advantage.

The Oles would cut the lead to 4-3 on Lindsay Weier's second goal of the game at 16:41 of the third period, but that was as close as they would get as SMU pushed its record to 7-6-3 in the MIAC and 10-10-3 overall.

"(St. Olaf's rink) is a tough place to play, and we came out a little sluggish. But when we came back out (for the second period) we just dominated," said Mannor, noting that the Cardinals were outshot 16-5 in the game's first 20 minutes, but made good on three of their nine second-period shots. "Everything seems to be clicking right now — hopefully that will continue."