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Game Summary vs. Augsburg / GameDay Online

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — For 45 minutes, the Saint Mary's University men's soccer team matched Augsburg blow-for-blow Saturday evening.

Problem was, in the game's final 45 minutes, the Auggies' delivered the knockout punch — making that five of them — as Augsburg scored on its first two shots of the second half and never looked back in handing the Cardinals a 5-0 Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference setback.

The Auggies, who entered Saturday's conference game having allowed just six goals in their first nine games, were their stingy old selves against the Cardinals, holding SMU to just three shots on goal, while peppering the SMU net with 16 shots.

"Talk about a tale of two halves," said SMU coach Chris Dembiec. "I thought we played a great first half — we did everything we wanted to do and went into halftime in perfect position.

"Then in the second half we came out a bit slow, gave up two quick goals, and then just seemed to lose all of our energy. It's disappointing, because had we played the second half the way we played the first, we could have come out of here with a victory."

After a scoreless opening 45 minutes, in which Augsburg outshot the Cardinals 7-2, the Auggies finally broke the ice five minutes into the second half, as D.J. Wendell netted his team-leading seventh goal of the season, beating Cardinal goalkeeper Jon Szafranski (Barrington, Ill.) off a corner kick.

Nine minutes later, Augsburg pushed its lead to 2-0, as Alex Hildebrandt beat Szafranski with a one-timer for his third goal of the season.

And from there, things just went from bad to worse for the Cardinals, who gave up three more goals in a 10-minute span — including Wendell's second of the game —  in suffering their sixth shutout loss of the season.

The Cardinals, who fell to 0-4-1 in the MIAC and 2-8-1 overall, return to action Sunday, playing host to St. Norbert in a 1 p.m. nonconference game at Winona State's Maxwell Field at Alltel Stadium.