Box Score Game Summary vs. CSB / GameDay Online

WINONA, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University women's hockey team did its job Friday evening.

Too bad Concordia can't say the same.

Which makes the race for the final Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference playoff spot still a tad bit cloudy.

Thanks to the Cardinals' 4-1 victory over Saint Benedict Friday evening at the SMU Ice Arena ¬— and the Cobbers' 3-2 overtime loss to St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minn. — the conference's No. 5 playoff spot is up for grabs.

With their overtime win, St. Catherine moved one point ahead of both Saint Mary's and Saint Benedict for the fifth and final playoff spot with one conference game remaining.

An SMU win Saturday — and a St. Catherine loss — and the Cardinals are back in the MIAC playoffs for the third time in the last four years. An SMU loss and the Cardinals are left on the outside of the conference playoffs looking in for the second straight season.

“This was a big win for us,” said SMU coach Terry Mannor, whose team improved to 6-9-2 in the MIAC and 7-13-2 overall with the win. “We knew coming in what we had to do, and tonight, we took care of business.

“Now we've got to go out and repeat it again (Saturday).”

It was all about quality, not quantity for the Cardinals in the opening period against the Blazers, as SMU scored on its first two shots — a point-blank wrist shot off the stick of Stevie Fiek (Rochester, Minn.) and a tip-in of a slap shot by #Alex Braun (Darwin, Minn.) by Ingrid Klockars (Wheaton, Ill.) — to take a 2-0 advantage into the locker room after 20 minutes of play.

The Blazers turned in a dominating second-period performance, outshooting the Cardinals 14-4 and getting a shorthanded tally from Amie Ernst to cut the gap to one, 2-1, heading into the third period.

Fiek took matters into her own hands over the final 20 minutes, scoring her second goal of the game at 7:56 to give SMU its two-goal cushion, then assisted on an empty net goal by Jamie Henneman (Countryside, Ill.) that iced the win at 19:16.

“I thought we played a little tentative, which surprised me a bit,” said Mannor, whose team was outshot 32-19. “But what I was very happy with was the way we made the most of the opportunities we did have.

“This was a good, overall performance — hopefully we can repeat the effort (Saturday).”