Box Score Game Summary vs. St. Olaf / GameDay Online

NORTHFIELD, Minn. — In the marathon that is the collegiate hockey season, the Saint Mary's University men's hockey team was facing the final sprint — five weeks, 10 games, starting Friday evening against St. Olaf.

Unfortunately for SMU coach Bill Moore, his Cardinals false-started Friday, falling behind 3-1 in the opening 20 minutes and never quite recovering in falling to the Oles 6-4.

“We came out poorly in the first period — we didn't have any energy and we just kind of went through the motions,” said Moore, whose team fell to 1-5-1 in the MIAC, while the league-leading Oles improved to 7-1-1. “We played much better in the second and third periods, and actually had ourselves in good position late (trailing 5-4), but we took a penalty (in the game's last two minutes) and (St. Olaf) was able to add an empty netter.

“If we would have played the first period the way we played the second and third, we easily could have won this game,” Moore said. “That's been our problem all season — we are still just too inconsistent.”

The Oles dominated the opening 20 minutes, pelting SMU goalie Scott Pederson (Lake Villa, Ill.) with 20 first-period shots in taking a 3-1 advantage. Tommy Healy (Rolling Meadows, Ill.) netted SMU's lone first-period tally.

Steve Murphy (Anchorage, Alaska) netted his team-leading sixth goal of the season five minutes into the second period to cut the gap to 3-2, but St. Olaf answered with back-to-back goals to push its lead to 5-2 at 5:51 of the final stanza. Matt Staehely (Shorewood, Ill.) and Murphy made it a one-goal game again, 5-4, but the Oles' Sam Windsor iced the win with an empty net tally at 19:14.

“We played some pretty good hockey,” said Moore, whose team returns home to host the Oles in the second game of the teams' two-game conference series Saturday evening. “We just dug too deep a hole. Everyone it looked like we might dig ourselves out, (St. Olaf) pushed us back down.”