By DONNY NADEAU
Saint Mary's Sports Information Director
 
MOORHEAD, Minn. — There certainly was no shortage of offense in the Saint Mary's University of Minnesota men's hockey team's Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference game against Concordia Friday evening.
 
And, despite scoring a combined eight goals—60 minutes was not enough to decide a winner.
 
Unfortunately for the Cardinals, the overtime period did not work out in their favor, as Concordia's Dalton Mills scored with 1:53 remaining in overtime to lift the Cobbers to a 5-4 Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference victory at the Moorhead Sports Center.
 
Goals came fast and furious in the game's opening 20 minutes, as the two teams combined for light the lamp five times.
 
Saint Mary's appeared to have the upper hand early, getting back-to-back goals from Andrew Cummings (Anchorage, Alaska) and Jay Heinle (York, Pa.) 35 seconds apart before the game was even four minutes old.
 
That two-goal lead did not last long, however, as Concordia answered with the first of its three unanswered goals, as Quinn Fuchs beat Saint Mary's goalie Aaron Davis (Mound, Minn.) just over a minute after the Cardinals had grabbed their two-goal advantage.
 
And Concordia was just getting warmed up.
 
Jon Grebosky would knot the game at 2-2 at 10:07 of the opening period, and Tanner Okeson would find the back of the net with 1:43 remaining to give the Cobbers their first lead of the game, 3-2, heading into the second period.
 
After a chaotic opening period, things calmed down a bit in the second—until the 17:15 mark, that is.
 
Jared Johnson (Hartland, Wis.) would score the only goal of the middle frame, taking a feed from Dylan Robertson (Alpharetta, Ga.) and beating Cobber goal Sam Nelson to pull the Cardinals even, 3-3, heading into the locker room after 40 minutes.
 
The two teams would trade third-period goals—Concordia's coming off the stick of Bryan Kronberger at 5:13, while Saint Mary's Kyle Meeh (Fenton, Mo.) sent the game into overtime with his game-tying tally at 12:17.
 
But in the overtime, it would Mills to the rescue for the Cobbers, scoring his ninth of the season to earn Concordia the win in the first game of the teams' two-game conference series.
 
Davis finished with 31 saves in goal for the Cardinals, while Nelson did his Cardinal counterpart two better, stopping 33 of the Cardinals' 37 shots.
 
The Cardinals (1-5-1 MIAC, 3-10-2 overall) and Cobbers (4-2-1 MIAC, 7-6-3 overall) return to the Moorhead Sports Center on Saturday for the second game of their two-game conference series. Opening faceoff is set for 2 p.m.