WINONA, Minn. — Bethel headed into Friday's Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference game against the Saint Mary's University women's hockey team having played in seven straight one-goal games.
Make that eight straight.
And, unfortunately for the Cardinals, one-goal game No. 8 was a 2-1 Royal victory, as Bethel scored single goals in both the first and second periods in handing SMU the conference setback at the SMU Ice Arena.
“We just didn't come out with any energy,” said SMU coach
Terry Mannor. “I don't know our players looked at (Bethel's) record and thought tonight would be easy, or what, but we didn't play with the same type of intensity as we had against Gustavus last Saturday.”
The Royals jumped out to a 1-0 first-period lead, as Sarah Kartak beating SMU goalie
Kaye Collier (Hibbing, Minn.) with less than two minutes remaining in the opening 20 minutes.
Bethel would push its lead to 2-0 midway through the second period, before the Cardinals'
Nicole Olson (New Brighton, Minn.) netted her team-leading 10th goal of the season at 17:17 to pull SMU within one, 2-1, heading into the third stanza.
SMU peppered Bethel goalie Jess Newstrom with 12 third-period shots, but the Royal freshman kicked out everything the Cardinals threw at her to seal the victory.
“Hopefully we learned something from this game,” said Mannor, whose team falls to 4-2-1 in the MIAC and 7-6-1 overall heading into Saturday's rematch with the Royals in Blaine, Minn. “We can't afford to take any team lightly — we have to play at a very high level every night if we are going to accomplish the things we want to accomplish this season.”
