Game Summary

WINONA, Minn. — Their hopes of reaching the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference playoffs may have been on life support, but at least the Saint Mary's University men's hockey team's playoff heart was still beating heading into Friday's showdown against league-leading Bethel.

After battling the Royals for 60 minutes, however, SMU's playoff hopes took their final breath, as Bethel got three goals from Kent Bostrom — the third with less than four minutes remaining in regulation to break a 2-2 tie and send the Royals to a 3-2 victory at the SMU Ice Arena.

"We knew coming in that our (playoff) chances were pretty slim, but in this league, you can never say never," said SMU coach Don Olson, whose team needed to win its remaining four games — and have Augsburg lose at least two — in order to be among the final five MIAC teams playing after next weekend. "And the guys went out and played as well as they can play. Bethel is a very good team and we stayed right with them the entire way.

"It's disappointing to lose, especially a close game like that, but I can't ask any more of this team, they played their hearts out."

The Cardinals, who have now dropped three straight one-goal decisions, found themselves staring at a 1-0 first-period deficit, as Bostom netted his first of the game with 1:03 left in the game's opening 20 minutes.

Adam Fleishman (Vernon Hills, Minn.) pulled SMU even, as the Cardinal senior netted his second of the season, rifling a shot over the shoulder of Bethel goalie Aaron Damjanovich. The Royals regained their one-goal lead four minutes later to take a 2-1 edge into the final period.

SMU once again was able to come up with the equalizer when Karl Reinke (Duluth, Minn.) found the back of the net, tipping in a shot off the stick Jeff Miller (Portage, Mich.) three minutes into the period.

The game remained tied until the 16:01 mark, when Bostrom picked up a loose puck in front of the Cardinal net and beat SMU goalie Dan Smith (Rochester, Minn.) to seal the Royals' win.

"The most frustrating part is, we've played well enough to win any of the last three games we've played, and instead, we lost all three," said Olson, whose team had dropped 3-2 and 4-3 decisions to St. Olaf last week. "We just can't seem to get over the hump right now. We're playing right with teams, we're just not able to find a way to get the win."