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WINONA, Minn. — For Saint Mary's University men's hockey coach Bill Moore, it had been a long time since his Cardinals started a contest by scoring the game's first goal.

Six games to be exact.

And it had been nearly as long — five games — since the Cardinals headed into the locker room after the game's opening 20 minutes not staring at a one-, two- or three-goal deficit.

That all changed Friday evening, when Dylan Dock (River Falls, Wis.) got SMU on the board first for the first time since Jan. 11 against Milwaukee School of Engineering — and gave the Cardinals their first, first-period lead since Jan. 17 against Bethel —with his fourth goal of the season at 16:27 of the opening stanza.

Unfortunately for the Cardinals, that late, first-period goal would be all the offense SMU could muster, as Augsburg rattled off three unanswered goals in handing Saint Mary's a 3-1 Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference setback at the SMU Ice Arena.

"Mental letdowns were the difference tonight," said Moore. "We made a couple of bad decisions in our defensive end, and (Augsburg) capitalized on them — that was the difference in the game."

Augsburg answered Dock's first-period goal on a tally by Carl Krieger with 1:06 remaining in the game's opening 20 minutes, and, after a scoreless second period — in which Augsburg hit the pipe twice and Dock was thwarted on a breakaway in the final seconds — the Auggies found the back of the net twice in the game's final 20 minutes to seal the win.

Dylan Meier put Augsburg in front to stay with his fifth of the season just 1:29 into the third period, and Ben McClellan added his team-leading 12th of the year midway through the stanza to round out the scoring.

Phil Heinle (York, Pa.) finished with 32 saves in goal for the Cardinals — including 12 in the second period — while Matthew Bartels stopped 26 of the 27 SMU shots he faced in goal for the Auggies.

The Cardinals (2-9-0 MIAC, 6-13-1 overall) get another shot at the Auggies on Saturday, as SMU travels to Ed Saugestad Rink in Minneapolis, Minn., for a 7:05 p.m. rematch with Augsburg.