Box Score

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WINONA, Minn. — It's not that the Saint Mary's University men's hockey team has been playing poorly through the season's first five games — it's just that the Cardinals' opponents seem to be playing just a bit better.

And the end result has been a 0-4-1 start to the season, including a disappointing 4-2 loss to Saint John's in the teams' Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference opener at the SMU Ice Arena Friday evening.

"It's frustrating," said SMU coach Don Olson, whose team is in the midst of a 12-game winless streak, dating back to a 5-4 overtime  win vs. Hamline on Jan. 26, 2007. "We haven't played that poorly — in fact, at times this season, we've played very well. We just can't seem to get over the hump."

On Friday, that hump was a 2-0 deficit, as the Johnnies netted the only goal of the first period on Joel Stacklie's second goal of the season, then got a Jason Weigel goal five minutes into the second period.

SMU cut the gap to one, 2-1, when Anthony Bohn (Spring Hill, Fla.) tallied his second of the season, but the Johnnies answered two minutes later as Tom Freeman scored on the powerplay. SMU's Jesse Polk (Hastings, Minn.) once again made it a one-goal game with a powerplay tally of his own with 20 seconds remaining  in the second period, but the Johnnies countered with the only goal of the third period in beating the Cardinals for the 10th time in their last 11 meetings.

"Our biggest problem right now is, we just don't seem to have that fire, that real will to win," said Olson, whose team will get another shot at the Johnnies Saturday afternoon, as the teams complete the second game of their two-game MIAC series. "We don't seem to be willing to fight through the adversity, to just battle for 60 minutes.

"We've shown flashes, but until we can consistently win all the little battles, we are going to struggle to win the big battle."