Box Score WINONA, Minn. — When the Saint Mary's University and UW-River Falls men's hockey teams squared off on Dec. 4, the Falcons scored at 1:30 of the first period and never looked back in beating the Cardinals 7-0 in River Falls, Wis.
Saturday evening, the same two teams squared off, and, unfortunately for the Cardinals, it started in the exact same way, as UW-RF got a goal from Tyler Pederson just 1:46 into the opening period at the SMU Ice Arena.
This time around, however, the Cardinals weren't about to fold, scoring three unanswered goals to take what appeared to be a commanding 3-1 lead into the third period.
Unfortunately, things are always as they appear, as UW-River Falls scored two goals in a 26-second span one minute into the game's final stanza, then got the game-winner, a shorthanded tally 2:08 into overtime, as the Falcons escaped with a 4-3 victory.
“It's frustrating,” said SMU coach
Bill Moore. “We played very well tonight. Take away that first minute in the third period, and we come away with at least a 3-1 win. The hard part is, moral victories can only take you so far — we played well enough to win tonight, we just weren't able to get the job done.”
Just 54 seconds after Pederson got the Falcons on the board, the Cardinals answered, as
Blake Zemaitis (Mount Prospect, Ill.) scored his first of the season to knot the game at 1-1.
And the first period wasn't even three minutes old.
The Cardinals would add a goal before the end of the period on a
Vincent Unklesbay (Maplewood, Minn.) tally at 10:40, then pushed their lead to 3-1 on
Trevor Tolibas' (Colorado Springs, Colo.) second of the season two minutes into the second period.
That, however, would be the extent of the Cardinals' offensive attack, and the Falcons took advantage, getting back-to-back goals from Tyler Czuba at 1:00 and 1:26 of the third period to tie the game at 3-3 — and set up Sean Roadhouse's overtime heroics.
With the Cardinals on the powerplay, Roadhouse stole a pass, broke in on SMU goalie
Andy Scheib (Sun Prairie, Wis.) and beat the freshman goalie high to the glove side.
Scheib, making his second start of the season, finished with 28 saves for the Cardinals, while Eric Babcock stopped 26 shots in goal for the Falcons.
The Cardinals, who fall to 1-11-1 overall, return to Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference play next Friday, traveling to St. Olaf for a 7 p.m. contest against the Oles.
