MENDOTA HEIGHTS, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University men's hockey team couldn't stop St. Thomas last Friday night — but Mother Nature could.

While the Tommies were busy scoring four first-period goals and holding on for a 6-4 victory over the Cardinals at the SMU Ice Arena, Mother Nature was busy blanketing the city of Winona in snow.

Lots, and lots of snow.

By the time she was done, 18 inches had fallen, forcing the postponement of the Tommie-Cardinal rematch, scheduled for Saturday at the St. Thomas Ice Arena.

Eight more inches fell Saturday, and the game was once again moved, from Sunday to Monday.

Another storm hit Monday evening, but, unfortunately for the Cardinals, it wasn't another late-February snowstorm. This time, it was raining goals — Tommie goals.

Nick Pernula scored two goals vs. the Cardinals for the second straight game and the Tommies jumped out to a 3-0 first-period lead in handing SMU a season-ending 5-3 setback.

"It was a similar game to Friday night's," said SMU coach Don Olson. "We made things interesting, but we were never really into the game mentally. We just didn't seem to have much of a jump in our step."

Staring at a 3-0 first-period deficit, Anthony Bohn (Spring Hill, Fla.) got the Cardinals on the board with less than three minutes remaining in the first period to cut the Tommies' lead to 3-1 head into the locker room after the game's opening period.

Cullum Buetow-Staples (Arden Hills, Minn.) — one of four SMU seniors playing their final collegiate game — got the Cardinals within one, 3-2, when he netted a short-handed goal three minutes into the second period. UST regained its two-goal advantage with a power-play goal 20 seconds later, and the two teams traded third-period goals, SMU's coming off the stick of Adam Gill (Rochester, Minn.) as UST won its ninth straight — while handing the Cardinals their seven setback in a row.

Monday's game — in fact, the entire conference season for that matter — proved to be the perfect motto for the Cardinals' this year: Close, but not close enough.

"It's been one of those years, we were competitive with every (conference) team we played, but we couldn't seem to get over the hump," said Olson, whose team finished 4-11-1 in its 16 MIAC games — but only once, a 6-3 loss to Saint John's on Dec. 3, 2006, was the game decided by more than two goals. "But it also showed that we're not quite there yet.

"We had a lot of young players in the lineup — players who played huge roles for us this season," added Olson. "And those young players are going to make mistakes. Hopefully, they've learned from those mistakes and we can take it to the next level next year."