WINONA, Minn. — Heading into its Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference game against St. Olaf, the Saint Mary's University men's hockey team had scored first once — and came away with a victory in that one contest.
 
Friday night, the Cardinals made it 2-for-2.
           
Saint Mary's got goals from four different players — including a pair of third-period goals to break open a one-goal game — en route to a 4-1 victory over the Oles at the Saint Mary's Ice Arena.
 
The Cardinals wasted no time getting on the board, as Tyson Liverance (Burford, Ontario) found Bud Winter (St. Louis, Mo.) with a pass and Winter snuck it past Ole goaltender Cooper Lukenda for the game's first goal — inciting an explosion of teddy bears being thrown onto the ice to celebrate the annual Teddy Bear Toss.
 
Saint Mary's would hold that one-goal advantage until the 13:53 mark of the second period, when the Oles' Tyler Cooper foiled Cardinal goalie Matt Sankner's (Pennington, N.J.) shutout bid to knot the game at 1-1.
 
The game did not stay deadlocked for long, however.
 
Less than two minutes to be exact, as SMU's Laudon Poellinger (La Crescent, Minn.) answered Cooper's tally with his second of the season to give Saint Mary's a 2-1 lead after two periods of play.
 
The second-period intermission did nothing to slow down the Cardinals' offense, as Andrew Froese (Traverse City, Mich.) pushed the Saint Mary's lead to 3-1 eight minutes into the final stanza.
 
And Trevor Wilhelm (St. Louis, Mo.) gave the Cardinals a little breathing room with his first goal of the season — a power-play tally with 2:15 to play — to round out the scoring.
 
Sankner was flawless after surrendering that second-period tally, finishing with 20 saves, while Lukenda made 29 saves for St. Olaf.
 
 The Cardinals (2-3-0 MIAC, 3-7-1 overall) are back in action on Saturday, as they head to the St. Olaf Ice Arena in Northfield, Minn., for the second game of their two-game MIAC series against the Oles. Opening face-off is slated for 2 p.m.