Game Summary

WINONA, Minn. — Saint Mary's University men's hockey coach Don Olson knew that this was going to be a tough, tough weekend for his Cardinals.

After all, not only did the Cardinals have to square off against the fifth- and four-ranked teams in all of NCAA Division III, but the second game of the weekend was against UW-River Falls — a team that beat the Cardinals 10-2 just before the Christmas break.

Unfortunately for Olson, the Cardinals came away from the weekend empty handed, but the back-to-back losses to UW-Stout and UW-River Falls certainly didn't have the SMU head coach feeling too down in the dumps.

"Those are two very, very good teams and I thought we held our own against them," said Olson, whose team dropped a 4-1 decision to No. 5 UW-Stout on Friday, then fell behind 3-0 after two periods in falling to the fourth-ranked Falcons 5-2 Saturday. "It's disappointing that we weren't able to come away with a win, but we knew coming into the weekend that we would have to play near-perfect hockey and everything go just right if we were going to beat them.

"I thought, for the most part, we played fairly well," continued Olson, whose team held a 41-36 edge in shots on goal against the Falcons, but could only come up with a pair of third-period Adam Gill (Rochester, Minn.) goals to show for their efforts. "We created a ton of great scoring chances (against River Falls), we just weren't able to convert on as many as we needed to."

The Falcons got on the board first, netting the lone goal of the opening period, then added a pair of goals seven minutes apart in the second period to take a 3-0 advantage into the final 20 minutes.

Gill pulled the Cardinals to within two, 3-1, with his seventh of the season three minutes into the final period, but the Falcons regained their three-goal cushion three minutes later. Gill again cut the gap to two when he split a pair of Falcon defenders and beat UWRF goalie A.J. Bucchino with a shorthanded goal at 12:11.

But again, the Falcons had an answer, as Mitch Kerns closed out the scoring, beating SMU goalie Dan Smith (Rochester, Minn.) just two minutes after Gill's second of the game.

"(River Falls) always seemed to have an answer," said Olson. "Every time it appeared like we would gain the momentum, (the Falcons) would take it right back. They are a very good team — no question one of the best teams in the country, and I'm pleased with the effort we put forth against them.

"They took it to us pretty good before Christmas … it was nice to see us bounce back and play a little better against them the second time around."