By DONNY NADEAU
Saint Mary's Sports Information Director
 
WINONA, Minn. — It wasn't quite the sequel Saint Mary's University women's hockey coach Sarah Murray was hoping for.
 
Coming off their first win of the season — getting the game-winning goal from Anya Hafiz (Woodbury, Minn.) with less than three minutes remaining in regulation in Friday's 4-3 win over Concordia — Murray was looking for a repeat performance in the teams' rematch on Saturday.
 
Concordia, however, had other ideas, scoring a pair of third-period goals — including an empty-netter in the game's final minute — as the Cobbers salvaged a Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference split with a 3-1 win over the Cardinals at the Saint Mary's Ice Arena.
 
The Cardinals struck first at 13:05 of the first period on Carolyn Chrastka's (Franklin Park, Ill.) first goal of the season — an unassisted tally. The Saint Mary's lead did not last long, however, as the Cobbers' Ally Wiitala scored for the second straight game just 34 seconds after Chrastka's tally to knot the game at 1-1.
 
The game would remain deadlocked through the second period — thanks in large part to the play of Cardinal goalie Ary Ziakas (Palatine, Ill.), who stopped all 20 CC second-period shots, while Cobber goalie Kiana Flaig needed to make just three saves in the middle frame.
 
Concordia slipped one past Ziakas — literally — midway through the third period, as Maiah McCowan broke down the left side, cut to the middle a feathered a shot that trickled through the Cardinal goalie and into the net for a 2-1 Cobber lead.
 
The Cobbers would tack on an empty net goal by Callie Fagerstrom with 49 seconds remaining to seal the win — and the conference split.
 
Ziakas finished with 26 saves — sandwiching two first-period saves and four third-period saves around her 20-save second-period effort ­— while Flaig kicked out 22 of the 23 Saint Mary's shots she faced.
 
The Cardinals (1-1-0 MIAC, 1-4-0 overall) are back in conference play next weekend, hosting St. Catherine in a 7 p.m. MIAC matchup at the Saint Mary's Ice Arena on Friday, before heading to Drake Arena in St. Paul, Minn., for the 4:30 p.m. rematch. The Cobbers (1-1-0 MIAC, 3-2-0 overall) return home to the Moorhead Sports Center for a pair of conference games against Saint Benedict. CC and CSB will square off in a 7 p.m. contest on Friday, before completing the two-game series with a 2 p.m. matinee the following afternoon