MENDOTA HEIGHTS, Minn. — The first time the Saint Mary's University of Minnesota men's hockey team squared off against St. Thomas this season, the Cardinals got a goal by Bob Kinne (St. Paul, Minn.) with 25 seconds left in regulation, lifting the Cardinals to a 3-3 tie with the Tommies at the MIAC Hockey Showcase in late October.
 
Friday evening, the two teams met again—this time in the first game of their two-game conference series.
 
And once again, the Cardinals headed into the final seconds of the third period needing a game-tying goal.
 
Enter Kinne—again.
 
The Cardinal senior scored with 16 seconds remaining in regulation to pull Saint Mary's even, 5-5—and send the game into overtime.
 
Unfortunately, the overtime period would last just 32 seconds, as St. Thomas' Johnny Roisum rifled a shot past Saint Mary's goalie Phil Heinle (York, Pa.) to live the league-leading and nationally ranked Tommies to a 6-5 victory at the St. Thomas Ice Arena.
 
"It was a good game, and I thought we played pretty well," said Saint Mary's coach Bill Moore. "Give St. Thomas credit, they are a very good team and really came at us hard.
 
"It really came down to special teams," Moore added. "We took a couple bad penalties late—and St. Thomas made us pay for it."
 
The Cardinals got on the board first, as Jared Johnson (Hartland, Wis.) scored his second of the season just 1:21 into the opening period. Michael Dockery got the equalizer for St. Thomas six minutes later, but the game did not remain deadlocked long, as Seth Kamrass (Peachtree Corners, Ga.) netted his first collegiate goal to give Saint Mary's a 2-1 lead after the game's opening 20 minutes.
 
Saint Mary's would push their advantage to 4-1 early in the second period, when Mike Mezzano (Woodbury, Minn.) and Kinne scored 31 seconds apart, but St. Thomas would cut into that advantage with a goal by Chris Benson at 17:12, leaving the Cardinals with a 4-2 cushion heading into the game's final 20 minutes.
 
And what a 20 minutes it proved to be.
 
D.J. Jones and Thomas Williams scored just over a minute apart before the period was over to make it a 4-4 game, and Williams added his second of the game two minutes after his first to give UST its first lead of the game, 5-4.
 
A lead the Tommies would maintain until the game's waning seconds, when Kinne scored his second goal of the game—a shorthanded tally—to send the game into overtime.
 
And set up Roisum's overtime heroics.
 
Heinle finished with 24 saves in goal for the Cardinals, while two UST goalies—Andrew Rokohl and Benjamin Myers—combined to stop 31 of Saint Mary's 36 shots on goal.
 
The Cardinals (4-3-0 MIAC, 7-5-2 overall) get another shot at the 15^th-ranked Tommies on Saturday, as the two teams head to the Saint Mary's Ice Arena for a 7 p.m. conference rematch.