Box Score Game Summary vs. UW-RF / GameDay Online

WINONA, Minn. — On paper, Saturday night's nonconference game against the Saint Mary's University men's hockey team was supposed to be a walk in the park for UW-River Falls.

After all, the Falcons were coming off a 3-2 loss to seventh-ranked UW-Stout Friday — the same team that throttled the Cardinals 12-2 on Tuesday.

As far as SMU was concerned, Saturday's game was a walk in the park  — New York's Central Park, and the Cardinals were doing the mugging.

The Cardinals scored with less than two minutes remaining in regulation, then got the game-winner off the stick of Eric Dahl (St. Cloud, Minn.) with 0.4 seconds left in overtime to lift SMU to a 2-1 victory at the SMU Ice Arena.

“This was a great win for the guys,” said SMU coach Bill Moore, whose team snapped a five-game losing streak with the win — their first against the Northern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference this season.  “They played with so much heart and so much determination — and it was nice that they were finally rewarded for their effort.”

The Falcons got on the board early in the first, as Derek Hansberry banged a rebound past SMU goalie Scott Pederson (Lake Villa, Ill.) just three minutes into the opening period.

That, however, would be the last time UW-River Falls would put one past Pederson, who finished with 40 saves, several of the acrobatic variety.

SMU, meanwhile, waited until the game's final two minutes to tie things up, as Mike Glaesmer (Traverse City, Mich.) knocked home a rebound off a shot by Steve Murphy (Anchorage, Alaska) with 1:55 remaining in regulation to knot the game at 1-1.

And the Cardinals used that better-late-than-never approach again in overtime, as SMU used all but four-tenths of a second to net the game-winner. Jeff Miller (Portage, Mich.) took a shot from the blueline that UW-River Falls goalie Stephen Ritter stopped, but the rebound went right to Dahl, who beat Ritter — and the clock — to give SMU the win.

“This was a great college hockey game,” said Moore, whose team had not won since beating Concordia 6-5 in overtime on Nov. 21. “We were so much more disciplined tonight, and it paid off.

“This was by far the best game, start-to-finish, that we've played all season.”