Box Score  | GameDay Preview

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. — After giving up 11 goals in a pair of nonconference losses to Lake Forest last weekend, Saint Mary's University women's hockey coach Terry Mannor knew that shoring up his team's defense would be priority No. 1.

Consider it shored up.

The Cardinals held UW-Eau Claire to just one goal in their two-game nonconference series — following up a 3-0 shutout win on Friday with an impressive 5-1 victory over the Blugolds Saturday at Hobbs Ice Arena.

"We've been struggling to put together a complete, 60-minute game, and we did that twice this weekend," said Mannor. "I thought we played pretty well (Friday night), but we played even better today."

After failing to get a puck past SMU goalie Sarah Gustafson (Esko, Minn.) on Friday — as the Cardinal senior kicked out all 21 shots in recording her second shutout of the season — the Blugolds finally converted eight minutes into the opening period.

That, however, would be the last time UW-Eau Claire would put the puck past Gustafson.

And the Cardinals' offense was just hitting its stride.

SMU would score five unanswered goals — two in the first, one in the second and two in the third — to complete its sweep of the Blugolds.

Back-to-back goals by Breanna Peterson (Macomb, Mich.) and McKenna Parent (Anoka, Minn.) three minutes apart late in the first period gave SMU the lead for good, 2-1, while Brittany Therrien (Brooklyn Park, Minn.) added a second-period goal to make it a 3-1 game. Mackie Fadness (Eau Claire, Wis.) and Kassie Lien (Grantsburg, Wis.) tallied back-to-back third period goals to round out the scoring.

Gustafson finished with 13 saves for the Cardinals, while UW-Eau Claire goalie Alexys Woodward had 33 saves.

The Cardinals (4-8-0 overall) round out the nonconference portion of their schedule with a rare Wednesday night game, as SMU hosts St. Norbert in a 7 p.m. contest at the SMU Ice Arena.