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WINONA, Minn. — Saint Mary's University men's soccer coach Pete Watkins has to be scratching his head wondering what his team did to upset the soccer gods so much.

A week after giving up a goal late in the second overtime of a 1-0 Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference loss to Augsburg, the Cardinals suffered yet another Wednesday heartbreak at the hands of Luther.

The Norse's J.W. Slauson scored with 1:14 remaining in regulation to break a 1-1 tie and lead Luther to a 2-1 nonconference win over the Cardinals at Ochrymowycz Field Wednesday.

"It's tough to lose a game that way — a game in which we put ourselves in position to win," said SMU coach Pete Watkins. "I thought we did a nice job of creating some good scoring opportunities, it just came down to (Luther) converting on one more (chance) than we did.

"That's a team that would do very well in our league," Watkins said of Luther. "This was another one of those games that we have to learn from and keep working to get better. We did a lot of very good things tonight — we just didn't make the most of those opportunities."

After a scoreless first half, the Norse quickly got on the board in the second half, scoring just 27 seconds in when Brock Arend took a feed from Slauson and beat SMU goalkeeper Joey Petrich with the game's first goal.

Matt Graber (Denver, Colo.) pulled the Cardinals even in the 68th minute, netting his third of the season off an assist from Midhat Mujic (Rochester, Minn.).

The game would remain tied until the 89th minute, when Slauson headed an Arend pass past Petrich for the game-winner.

Petrich, making his seventh straight start in goal for the Cardinals, finished with seven saves, while Luther goalkeeper Tommy Breen recorded three saves in goal for the Norse.

SMU (3-4-0 overall) returns to Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference play on Saturday, when the Cardinals travel to St. Paul, Minn., for a 1 p.m. showdown with regionally ranked St. Thomas.