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WINONA, Minn. — After 20 minutes Sunday afternoon, Hamline headed into the locker room boasting a 1-0 lead over the Saint Mary's University women's hockey team.

Little did the Pipers know that Lizzy Scheidt's first-period goal may have giving HU a 1-0 lead — but it also woke a sleeping giant.

The Cardinals erupted for five goals in the game's final two periods — including four in the third period alone — en route to a 5-3 Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference victory in the teams' regular-season finale at the SMU Ice Arena.

"It was a great weekend for us," said SMU coach Terry Mannor, whose team beat the Pipers 2-1 in the first game of their two-game series on Saturday. "I thought we played two really good periods (on Saturday) and it was more of the same today — we didn't play all that well in the first period, but we dominated the second and third."

And dominate might be a bit of an understatement.

The Cardinals, who were outshot 13-9 in the game's opening 20 minutes, pummeled Hamline goalie Katie Beckman with 22 second-period shots — including the equalizer from Breanna Peterson (Macomb, Mich.) on a stellar individual effort in which the SMU junior swiped a loose puck past Beckman while falling to the ice.

Peterson's goal seemed to jump-start the Cardinal offense, as Katie Ehlenfeldt (Beaver Dam, Wis.) and McKenna Parent (Anoka, Minn.) scored 50 seconds apart early in the third period to give SMU what appeared to be a commanding 3-1 advantage.

Hamline, however, cut the gap to one, 3-2, on a goal by Corinne Henning. The one-goal game lasted less than three minutes, as Taylor Pogreba (St. Paul, Minn.) netted her first collegiate goal to push SMU lead back to two, 4-3.

Henning again kept the Pipers in the game, scoring her second of the afternoon — and team-leading ninth of the season — just 19 seconds after Pogreba's tally. That was as close as HU would get, however, as Kassie Lien (Grantsburg, Wis.) scored into an empty net at 19:03 to ice the victory for the Cardinals.

Sarah Gustafson (Esko, Minn.) — one of five seniors playing her final collegiate game — finished with 22 saves in goal for the Cardinals, while Beckman stopped 41 of SMU's season-high 46 shots.

With the win, the Cardinals close out the season on a three-game winning streak, finishing at 7-11-0 in conference play and 9-15-1 overall.