By DONNY NADEAU
Saint Mary's Sports Information Director
 
SUPERIOR, Wis. — Saint Mary's University of Minnesota men's soccer coach Corbin Bowers certainly could not complain about the way his Cardinals opened their nonconference game against UW-Superior Sunday afternoon.
 
After all, the Cardinals scored less than two minutes in — and added a second goal in the 38^th minute to grab a 2-0 advantage over the host Yellowjackets.
 
Unfortunately for Bowers, all that 2-0 lead did was provide UW-Superior with a wake-up call.
 
And once awakened, Yellowjackets' offense stung the Cardinals over, and over, and, over, and over.
 
UW-Superior erupted for four unanswered goals ­— two in the first half and two more in the second — as the Yellowjackets held off a late Cardinal surge to deal Saint Mary's a 4-3 setback.
 
The fans in attendance didn't even get a chance to get comfortable in their seats and Saint Mary's was on the board, as Kyle Lichttenegger (De Pere, Wis.) scored his second goal of the season — off an assist from Chris Beiersdorf (Arlington Heights, Ill.) — to get the Cardinals off and running.
 
Cole Van Houten (Pine Island, Minn.) pushed the Cardinal advantage to 2-0 with his first collegiate goal in the game's 38^th minute.
 
That two-goal advantage did not last long, however, as the Yellowjackets issued their first sting — off the foot of Leonardo Paredes — just two minutes after Van Houten's tally.
 
Still smarting from Paredes' tally, the Cardinals were stung again — just 21 seconds later — as Blake Perry knotted the game at 2-2 with his fourth of the season to knot the game at 2-2 heading into the halftime intermission.
 
UW-Superior picked up right where it left off in the second half, scoring a pair of goals in a seven-minute span to grab a two-goal lead of its own, 4-2.
 
Saint Mary's cut the deficit to one, 4-3, on R.J. Vazquez's (Antioch, Ill.) first goal in a Cardinal uniform with 14 minutes remaining in regulation — but it was too little, too late.
 
Alberto Centeno (Elk Grove Village, Ill.) made five saves on six shots in the game's first 41 minutes, while Michael Maniak (Wisconsin Dells, Wis.) stopped one of the four UW-Superior shots he faced in 49 minutes of work. The Yellowjackets' Dalton VonKaenel, meanwhile, finished with four saves.
 
The Cardinals (4-6-0 overall) are back in action on Wednesday, heading to Waukesha, Wis., for a 7:30 p.m. nonconference game against Carroll.