WINONA, Minn. — The last time the Saint Mary's University of Minnesota men's hockey team squared off against UW-Stevens Point, the Pointers were ranked sixth in the country—and needed overtime to hand the Cardinals a 3-2 nonconference setback.
 
Fast-forward one year, and the Cardinals and Pointers once again found themselves locking horns—and for the second year in a row, UW-Stevens Point came into the nonconference showdown as one of the nation's top-ranked teams.
 
Unfortunately for the Cardinals, that's where the similarities ended.
 
UW-Stevens Point scored two goals in all three periods—including two in a two-minute span in the game's middle period—as the fourth-ranked Pointers handed the Cardinals a 6-2 setback at the Saint Mary's Ice Arena.
 
"I was proud of the way our guys battled from start-to-finish," said Saint Mary's coach Bill Moore. "It may not show it in the final score, but I thought we did a better job in our defensive zone. We made a few bad mistakes and (Stevens Point) is too good a team to do that—every time we made a mistake, they made us pay for it."
 
After scoring first in both of their Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference games against St. Thomas last weekend, the Cardinals found themselves playing catch-up in the first period against the Pointers.
 
UW-Stevens Point's Kyle Sharkey got the Pointers on the board 5:32 into the opening period, scoring his seventh of the season off a pass from Jacob Barber.
 
Eliot Grauer made it 2-0 UW-Stevens Point at 17:11, but the Cardinals answered 41 seconds later, as Martin Gruse (Trenton, Mich.) netted his 10^th of the season, taking a feed from Bob Kinne (St. Paul, Minn.) and beating UW-SP goalie Max Milosek.
 
The Pointers' lead quickly ballooned to 4-1 early in the second period, as Tanner Karty and Sharkey found the back of the net two minutes apart. Chad Cesarz (Jackson, Mich.) got the Cardinals back within two, 4-2, with his eighth off the goal off an assist from Kelvin Walz (Woodbury, Minn.) midway through the stanza.
 
But that would be as close as the Cardinals would get.
 
UW-Stevens Point would record its third straight two-goal period, getting tallies from Evan Dixon and Grauer, in clinching its fourth consecutive victory.
 
Jake Tugnutt (Peterborough, Ontario)—making his second collegiate start—finished with 26 saves in goal for the Cardinals, while Milosek kicked out 20 of the 22 Saint Mary's shots he faced.
 
The Cardinals (7-7-2 overall) are back in action—and back on their home ice—on Saturday, hosting UW-Stout in a 7 p.m. nonconference game at the Saint Mary's Ice Arena.