Box Score

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WINONA, Minn. — Saint Mary's University women's hockey coach Terry Mannor picked up his first collegiate coaching win in his first game behind the bench, as his Cardinals rolled to a 5-1 victory over UW-Eau Claire on Nov. 5, 2005.

Five meetings later, and Mannor and the Cardinals are still searching for win No. 2 vs. the Blugolds.

UW-Eau Claire erupted for three first-period goals, then held off a late SMU rally to beat the Cardinals 3-1 Tuesday evening at the SMU Ice Arena.

"We really didn't have a lot of fire tonight — I don't think we were as mentally prepared as we needed to be," said Mannor, whose team was outshot 12-4 in the opening period and 31-25 for the game. "We came out pretty flat-footed, and (UW-Eau Claire) took advantage of that and put us in a pretty big hole right off the bat."

The Blugolds took a little different approach than their last meeting with the Cardinals — a 4-0 victory in SMU's season opener on Nov. 10. In that game, the Blugolds waited until the third period to score three goals in breaking opening a one-goal game.

This time around, UW-Eau Claire did all of its damage in the game's first 20 minutes — in fact, UW-EC waited just 1:11 to get on the board, as Christine Dickinson rifled a shot past SMU goalie Emily Friedl (La Crescent, Minn.) on the Blugolds' first shot of the game.

Kristin Faber and Michelle Stohr would also beat Friedl in the opening 20 minutes, as UW-Eau Claire took a commanding 3-0 lead into the locker room after the first period … and the second period.

"To go down 3-0 that early, it's tough to rebound from that," said Mannor. "Eau Claire is a good team, they have six solid defensemen who do a great job of moving the puck, and they don't make many mistakes."

Still trailing 3-0 midway through the third period, SMU's Katie Cachey (Orland Park, Ill.) finally got the Cardinals on the board, foiling UW-EC goalie Lindsay Savat's shutout bid with a rebound goal at 12:48.

That, however, was as close as SMU would get, as the Cardinals dropped their second straight and fell to 1-3-0

"We've got to get better all the way around," Mannor said. "Some how, we've got to find a way to make sure we are ready to play right from the opening face-off. I thought we played much better in the third period (when SMU outshot the Blugolds 13-6), but we dug ourselves such a deep hole, there was no way we could get out."