Box Score Game Summary vs. St. Scholastica / GameDay Online / Photo Gallery

WINONA, Minn. — It was a Halloween season-opener for the Saint Mary's University men's hockey team against St. Scholastica Friday evening at the SMU Ice Arena.

Unfortunately for the Cardinals, the night was filled with plenty of tricks — including a hat trick by the Saints' Trevor Geiger — and not too many treats, as St. Scholastica buried SMU 9-1 in a nonconference game.

“That sure wasn't the way we wanted the season to start,” said SMU first-year coach Bill Moore, noting that the Cardinals were forced to open its season without seven varsity players due to illness and suspensions. “You can't use their absences as an excuse, but when you are without some of your top offensive and defensive performers, it makes the going pretty tough — especially against a team like St. Scholastica.

“They are a very good team, and they certainly showed that tonight.”

Geiger got the Saints on the board late in the first period, scoring the first of St. Scholastica's two short-handed goals with four minutes remaining. The St. Scholastica senior tallied his second straight goal five minutes into the second period, before Steve Murphy (Anchorage, Alaska) netted his first goal as a Cardinal to cut the gap to 2-1.

That one-goal deficit, however, lasted less than a minute, as Matt Stengl, Geiger and Joey Martini all beat SMU goalkeeper Greg Moore (Woodbury, Minn.) before the period ended to give the Saints a commanding 5-1 advantage heading into the game's final 20 minutes.

And St. Scholastica was just getting warmed up.

The Saints would score four more times in third period — including a short-handed tally goal by Jeremy Dawes and a powerplay goal by Carter Davis — to ice the victory.

“Our biggest problem right now is that the guys have to stop playing pond hockey and realized that there are two ends to the ice,” said Moore, whose team was outshot 51-24 — including 21-9 in the second period. “You can't afford to give up 50 shots and win many games, especially with young, inexperienced goalies like we've got. Until our goalies get some game experience, everyone needs to do a better job of helping out in the defensive zone.

“It's just one game, and we can't afford to dwell too much on it,” said Moore, whose team returns to action Saturday, playing host to UW-Superior in a 7:05 p.m. game at the SMU Ice Arena. “We need to learn from our mistakes and put it behind us.”