By DONNY NADEAU
Saint Mary's Sports Information Director
 
WINONA, Minn. — Heading into Friday's conference showdown against nationally ranked and league-leading Hamline, Saint Mary's University women's hockey coach Sarah Murray was sure of one thing — the Cardinals could not afford to being playing catch-up.
 
The high-flying Pipers, however, made them do just that.
 
Hamline scored the game's first goal just 2:45 into the opening period and netted the second goal of the game just 41 seconds into the second — and the Pipers never looked back in rolling to a 6-1 Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference victory at the Saint Mary's Ice Arena.
 
The Pipers — ranked No. 5 in the latest USCHO.com Poll and unbeaten in its last 12 contests —did not waste any time taking control, scoring just 2:45 into the opening period, when Madison Kolbow rifled a wrist shot past Cardinal goalie Ary Ziakas (Palatine, Ill.) for her sixth goal of the season.
 
Over the final 17:15 of the first, however, Ziakas was impenetrable, stopping the Pipers' last 14 shots of the period — and 15 overall — to keep Saint Mary's within one, 1-0, after the game's opening 20 minutes.
 
As quickly as the Pipers scored in the first period, they were even quicker in the second, as Jordan Hansen took a feed from Molly Garin and rifled a shot over the shoulder of Ziakas to push Hamline's lead to 2-0 just 41 seconds into the middle frame.
 
Delaney Wolf (Bismarck, N.D.) got the Cardinals on the board ­— and made it a one-goal game — with her second of the season at 3:15, but the high-powered Piper offense was just getting warmed up.
 
With both teams skating a player down, Sophie Rausch found the back of the net to give Hamline a 3-1 lead, and, 15 seconds later, Hansen netted her second of the game — and suddenly the Cardinals were staring at a three-goal deficit.
 
And the Pipers weren't done, scoring their fourth goal of the period — off the stick of Garin — at 8:33 to make it a 5-1 Piper advantage.
 
Olivia Arkell would tack on her fifth of the season at 6:29 of the third period to round out the scoring.
 
Hamline held a 42-10 advantage in shots on goal — including a 15-0 edge in the game's final 20 minutes. Ziakas finished with 18 saves in 24 minutes of work, while Jordan Keeley (St. Peter, Minn.) kicked out 18 of the 19 shots she faced in relief. Hamline's McKenna Huslander stopped nine of the Cardinals' 10 shots on goal.
 
The Cardinals (3-9-1 MIAC, 6-12-2 overall) and Pipers (10-1-1 MIAC, 15-3-2 overall) head to TRIA Rink in St. Paul, Minn., for Saturday's second game of the teams' two-game conference series. Opening face-off is slated for 2 p.m.