Box Score

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4		5

Game Summary / GameDay Online

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — Once they got down to business, it was a great hockey game.

Getting there, however, wasn't so pretty.

The Saint Mary's University men's hockey team scored three goals in a three-minute span midway through the third period, but it wasn't quite enough,  as the Cardinals dropped a 5-4 Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference decision to Augsburg in the teams' season finale Saturday evening.

"It's too bad," SMU coach Don Olson said of the season-ending loss. "I was really hoping we could send out (six) seniors out with a sweep. We just ran out of time.

"It's pretty tough spot a team a 5-1 lead and hope to come back, but the guys battled hard and never gave up — which was great to see."

Augsburg's Joe Sauer and SMU's Adam Gill (Rochester, Minn.) traded goals a minute apart in the first period — a period that was marred by 140 minutes in penalties, including fighting majors to two players from each team.

"I wouldn't really call it a fight — there was a lot of pushing and shoving (after Augsburg scored its first goal), nobody dropped their gloves, and I don't even think a punch was thrown," explained Olson, who lost  the services of AJ Woodward (Lenexa, Kan.) and Mike Glaesmer (Traverse City, Mich.) in the melee. "That kind of set the tone for the rest of the night.

"We got it back to 1-1 (on Gill's goal), but then we let down and let (Augsburg) control the tempo."

The Auggies scored three times in the second period and added another 26 seconds into the third to push their lead to 5-1, before the Cardinals mounted their comeback — getting goals from Morgan Shepherd (Brainerd, Minn.), Matt Staehely (Shorewood, Ill.) and Jeff Miller (Portage, Mich.) to pull within 5-4 with 8:23 remaining in regulation.

Unfortunately, that would be as close as SMU would get, as Augsburg held the Cardinals at bay over the final eight minutes to seal the win.

"This is the kind of game that the guys could have just given up — especially after the way the first period went and the fact that we were down 5-1," said Olson, whose team closed out the season with a 9-14-2 mark, including a 6-10-0 record in the MIAC. "But they didn't. They hung together and battled back.

"It's just too bad we didn't have a little more time."