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WINONA, Minn. — Last season, the Saint Mary's University men's hockey team scored just one shorthanded goal in its 25-game schedule.

Saturday evening, the Cardinals scored a pair of shorthanded goals — not to mention a pair of power play tallies — as SMU cruised to a 5-2 nonconference win over St. Scholastica at the SMU Ice Arena.

“That was a nice win for us,” said SMU coach Bill Moore, whose team was coming off a 3-1 loss to UW-Superior on Friday. “It was great to see us pick up those two shorthanded goals — that really got us going.

“Add to that the fact that we scored a couple goals on the power play — and killed off all nine of (St. Scholastica's) power plays — this was a great, all-around effort.”

Unlike Friday's 3-1 loss to UW-Superior — when the Cardinals surrendered three first-period goals — it was SMU that hit the ground running Saturday, scoring twice in the opening 20 minutes to take a 2-1 advantage after the opening period.

Bob Marx (Sioux City, Iowa) kicked off the scoring, netting his third goal in SMU's first four games on the power play at 5:54. Scott Deur (Big Rapids, Mich.) pushed that advantage to 2-0 at 15:17 with his second shorthanded goal of the season — a highlight-reel tally in which Deur flipped a bouncing puck over a Saint defenseman's head, slipped around him and swatted the puck past goalie Colin Rundell.

St. Scholastica cut the deficit to 2-1 before the end of the period, but SMU scored two goals in a 40 second span two minutes into the second period — the first by Austin Balko (Midland, Mich.) and the second by Bobby Thompson (Centerville, Minn.) — to push their lead to 4-1.

Just eight seconds after Thompson's goal, however, CSS' Chris Sinclair beat SMU goalie Christian Gaffy (Scandia, Minn.) to make it a 4-2 game heading into the third period.

SMU scored the lone goal of the third period — the Cardinals' only even-strength goal of the game — as Nick Nagel (Andover, Minn.) netted his first of the season at 4:14.

Gaffy finished with 15 saves in recording his first collegiate win in his first collegiate start, while Rundell recorded 40 saves for the Saints.

The Cardinals (2-2-0 overall) open Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference play next weekend, hosting Hamline in a 7:30 p.m. game on Friday at the SMU Ice Arena, before heading to Vadnais Heights and the Vadnais Heights Sports Center for Saturday's 6:15 p.m. rematch.