Box Score

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5		1

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WINONA, Minn. — With more than a month off for the Christmas holiday, Saint Mary's University men's hockey coach Don Olson was a little worried about how his team would respond when they took the ice Saturday against Lawrence University.

Adam Gill (Rochester, Minn.) and David Gross (Grasston, Minn.) put those worries to rest in a hurry.

Gill sandwiched a pair of first-period goals around one off the stick of Gross, as the Cardinals extended their winning streak to a season-high four straight with a 5-1 win over the Vikings at the SMU Ice Arena.

"I thought the second Gustavus game (a 5-2 Cardinal win on Nov. 30) we really started to click offensively, and we just kept that going the next weekend at Concordia (14-3 and 7-2 Cardinal wins," said Olson, whose team moved to 5-5-2 with the win. "Then we had the long layoff, so I wasn't really sure how sharp we would be (against Lawrence).

"Fortunately, I thought we played pretty well on the offensive side."

The defensive side, however, was another story.

"We didn't play as well defensively as we need to. If we play like that in our own zone next weekend, we'll be in trouble," said Olson, whose Cardinals travel to top-ranked St. Norbert next Friday. "You always expect to be a little rusty when you come back after the (Christmas) holidays, so all-in-all, I thought we played about like I expected we would."

The Cardinals, who have now scored 31 goals during their current four-game win streak, jumped out to a 3-0 first-period advantage — thanks to Gill and Gross — and Gross tallied his second of the game late in the second period, as SMU took a 4-1 cushion into the game's final 20 minutes. Jeff Miller (Portage, Mich.) rounded out the scoring for the Cardinals, netting his third of the year on the powerplay at 17:34.

"We came out and played a really solid first period, but then struggled a bit in the second — too many penalties and I didn't think we competed as hard as we could have," said Olson, whose team was whistled for six second-period penalties, four of which gave the Vikings a pair of 5-on-3 power-play advantages. "But the bottom line is, we were able to come away with the win. It's nice to see that we were able to pick up where we left off (before the break)."