WINONA, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University women's hockey team earned its first Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference playoff appearance since 2006-07 with a 1-1 tie and 1-0 victory over St. Olaf in the teams' final regular-season series last weekend.
Unfortunately for the Cardinals, those same Oles made SMU's return to post-season play a brief one, as St. Olaf scored once in the first period and twice more in the second and held on for a 3-1 victory at the SMU Ice Arena Tuesday evening.
“It's a tough way to end the season, no question about that,” said SMU coach
Terry Mannor, whose team was not only make its first post-season appearance in three seasons, but they were also host their first conference playoff game since the 2003-04 season, when the Cardinals dropped a 2-1 decision to Augsburg. “It's always tough to try and beat a team three times in a season, and when that task is in a span of five days, it's even tougher.
“We knew after last weekend that St. Olaf was going to be a very tough opponent,” said Mannor, whose team got a third-period goal from
Stevie Fiek (Rochester, Minn.) to earn that 1-1 tie last Friday, then got a second-period tally from
Erin Stenseth (Eau Claire, Wis.) and 27 saves from
Kaye Collier (Hibbing, Minn.) in Saturday's 1-0 victory — a win that earned SMU the home-ice advantage for Tuesday's re-rematch against the Oles. “You have to tip their hat to (St. Olaf), they played a great game tonight, and we just didn't have any answers.”
The Oles got on the board early, as Katie Iraci scored her 10th goal of the season on St. Olaf's first shot of the game just 1:24 into the opening period.
St. Olaf would push that lead to 3-0 with a pair of second-period goals, the first off the stick of Kayla Hill at 7:06, and the second by Meghan Stumpf with less than four minutes remaining in the period.
The Cardinals, who outshot the Oles 26-22, finally got on the board at 17:32 of the third period, as
Ingrid Klockars (Wheaton, Ill.) tipped a
Dana Kreuser (Maplewood, Minn.) shot past St. Olaf goalie Jessica Ptachick.
That, however, would the extend of the Cardinals' offense, as St. Olaf held SMU at bay over the final 2:28 to seal the win.
“It's disappointing, but I'm proud of the way we battled right to the end,” said Mannor, whose team ended the season with a 12-12-2 overall record. “We've said all season that we wanted to be the hardest-working team in the MIAC, and we did that — tonight, and all season long.”
