By DONNY NADEAU
Saint Mary's Sports Information Director
 
WINONA, Minn. — There were plenty of offensive fireworks when the Saint Mary's
University and St. Thomas men's hockey teams squared off Friday evening at the Saint Mary's Ice Arena.
 
Unfortunately, the Tommies had one too many firecrackers in their arsenal, as St. Thomas scored a pair of third-period goals to break a 3-3 tie, then held off a furious Saint Mary's rally en route to a 5-4 Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference win over the Cardinals.
 
The Cardinals — who had their three-game winning streak snapped with the loss — opened the offensive floodgates just 2:20 into the opener period, as Robert Roslund (Vanersborg, Sweden) scored his first of the season off a nifty face-off play that had Trevor Paradise (Colorado Springs, Colo.) winning the draw to Ian Currie (Franklin, Tenn.), who fed Roslund — and the junior did the rest, rifling a shot past UST goalie Camden Burggrabe.
 
St. Thomas would answer, knotting the game at 1-1 on a power-play goal by Andrew Kangas midway through the opening frame, and Shayne Monahan added his first of the season two minutes later to give the Tommies a 2-1 lead heading into the locker room after 20 minutes.
 
Kyle Meeh (Fenton, Mo.) pulled Saint Mary's even, 2-2, with his sixth of the season on the power play at 2:26 of the middle period, and the two teams would trade goals 1:14 apart midway through the frame — Saint Mary's coming on Brady Lindauer's (Cary, Ill.) first collegiate goal — to set the stage for a dramatic third period.
 
St. Thomas regained the lead at 8:03 of the third on a goal by Spencer Zwiener, and pushed that advantage to 5-3 with a power-play goal by Jake Peterson five minutes later.
 
Meeh cut the deficit to 5-4 with his second power-play tally of the game at 17:41, but the Cardinals could not net the equalizer over the game's final 2:19.
 
Al Rogers (New Haven, Conn.) — the reigning MIAC Athlete of the Week — was busy in goal for the Cardinals, finishing with 30 saves, while Burggrabe kicked out 32 of Saint Mary's 36 shots on goal.
 
The Cardinals (3-2-0 MIAC, 5-6-1 overall) and Tommies (5-2-0 MIAC, 7-5-1 overall) return to action on Saturday, heading to the St. Thomas Ice Arena in Mendota Heights, Minn., for the second game of their two-game conference series. Opening face-off is set for 7 p.m.