ST. CLOUD, Minn. — After giving up a combined 14 goals in a pair of losses to Concordia last weekend, the Saint Mary's University men's hockey team got down-right defensive in its Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference showdown with Saint John's.
 
And leading that defensive charge was freshman goalie Matt Sankner (Pennington, N.J.).
 
Sankner kicked out a career-high 35 shots — and the Cardinal offense used the quality-over-quantity approach — as Saint Mary's picked up its first conference win of the season with a 2-1 victory over the Johnnies at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center.
 
Despite being outshot 12-3, the Cardinals withstood the Johnnies' first-period offensive barrage — thanks in large part to the play of Sankner — and were deadlocked at 0-0 after the first 20 minutes of play.
 
Saint John's picked up right where it left off to open the second, peppering Sankner with five more shots in the first three minutes of the period, before finally getting one past the freshman on a Spencer Rudrud goal at 4:31.
 
Saint Mary's broke through midway through the middle frame, as Trevor Schroder (Des Moines, Iowa) rifled a shot from the left hashmark that zipped over the shoulder of SJU goalie Mark Berglove and pulled the Cardinals even, 1-1.
 
And with Sankner continuing to stymie the Johnnies at every turn, the Cardinals, despite being outshot 27-9, headed into the second intermission the same way they did after the first — tied with the Johnnies.
 
The Cardinals put the clamps on SJU's high-octane offense to open the third period, limiting the Johnnies to just one shot on goal through the first 10 minutes.
 
The Cardinal offense, meanwhile, continued to ride the wave of momentum created by Schroder's second-period tally — grabbing their first lead of the game at 8:23 of the third, when Kasyn Kruse (Luverne, Minn.) beat Berglove for his second goal of the season to give Saint Mary's a 2-1 advantage.
 
Sankner made plenty of highlight-reel saves over the course of the contest, but came up with his biggest save of the game with just over a minute to play, making a diving stop of a Cole Souto point-blank shot to preserve the one-goal Cardinal advantage.
 
Saint John's finished with a 36-13 edge in shots on goal, but would only manage to get one past Sankner, who picked up his first collegiate win with the 35-save effort.
 
The Cardinals (1-2-0 MIAC, 2-6-0 overall) and Johnnies will conclude their two-game conference series on Saturday, when the two teams head to the Saint Mary's Ice Arena for a 7 p.m. showdown.