Box Score Game Summary vs. Augsburg / GameDay Online / Photo Gallery

Senior Salute

WINONA, Minn. — Heading into the third period of Friday's Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference game, the Saint Mary's University men's hockey team found itself looking up from the bottom of a 5-1 hole with 20 minutes to play.

And they couldn't dig themselves out, falling to Augsburg 6.2

Saturday evening, the Cardinals once again found themselves with shovel in hand, stuck in the bottom of a second-period hole.

Unfortunately for SMU, this one was even deeper, as Augsburg erupted for eight goals in the opening two periods to take an 8-2 lead en route to a 9-3 victory at the SMU Ice Arena.

“It's not just one thing for us lately,” said SMU coach Bill Moore. “We're not scoring goals the way we need to — in this league, two or three goals a game isn't going to cut it. But on the other hand, you can't be giving up goals the way we are. Six (Friday night) and nine tonight, that's just way too many goals.”

Friday night, it was the Cardinals who jumped out front early, as Steve Murphy (Anchorage, Alaska) scored just 1:31 into the opening period.

Saturday, it was Augsburg's turn to turn on the light early, getting a goal from Jim Jensen 1:49 into the first period.

And the Auggies never let up, scoring three more times in the first period, four times in the second and once more in the third en route to their sixth straight win.

While the Auggies were scoring in bunches, the Cardinals settled for single goals in each period. Tony Clafton (Grand Rapids, Minn.) netted his second goal of the season at 5:20 of the first period, Mike Glaesmer (Traverse City, Mich.) tallied his seventh of the year with 53 seconds left in the second, and Matt Staehely (Shorewood, Ill) netted his sixth of the season at 12:59 of the third.

“It was a game pretty similar to (Friday),” said Moore, whose team fell to 2-10-1 in the MIAC and 3-18=1 overall, and closes out its season next weekend, traveling to Saint John's for Saturday-Sunday games against the Johnnies. “We did not play well in either the first of second period, then played much better in the third. We're just not getting a consistent, three-period performance.”