COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. — Underdogs reigned supreme to kick off action in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Men's Hockey Playoff quarterfinals on Saturday.
Seventh-seeded St. Olaf took down No. 2 Concordia and No. 5 Bethel edged No. 4 St Scholastica — both games decided by one goal — while No. 9 Gustavus took top-seeded and nationally ranked Augsburg to overtime, before falling 4-3.
Sunday evening, in the final quarterfinal of the tournament, it was sixth-seeded Saint Mary's turn to play David and take down another MIAC Goliath, third-seeded Saint John's.
Unfortunately, the Cardinals' sling shots were no match for the high-powered Johnnies.
Saint John's scored twice in both the second and third periods, and never let the upset-minded Cardinals get their offense on track, as the Johnnies eliminated Saint Mary's with a 5-1 victory at Herb Brooks National Hockey Center.
It took less than six minutes for the Johnnies to deliver their first salvo, getting a power-play goal from Josh Maucieri for a 1-0 lead. Two minutes later, SJU struck again — this one coming on a breakaway by Lewis Crosby, who beat SMU goalie
Matt Sankner (Pennington, N.J.) for his team- and conference-leading 17th goal of the season to make it 2-0.
Saint John's took advantage of a crazy carrom off the back boards behind Sankner to push its lead to 3-0 11:47 into the second period. A Johnnie dump-in took a wicked bounce — right onto the stick of Matt DeRose, who rifled a slap shot from the right face-off dot past a bewildered Sankner.
After more than their fair share of chances just missing the mark, the Cardinals were finally rewarded for their efforts at 5:25 of the third period, as
Nathan Solis (Saline, Mich.) completed a nifty tic-tac-toe combination with
Bud Winter (St. Louis, Mo.) and
Ryan Stoynich (Calgary, Alberta), taping the puck past SJU goalie Mac Berglove to get Saint Mary's within two, 3-1.
Less than five minutes later, however, the Cardinal deficit once again climbed to three, when SJU's Auggie Moore corralled an errant SMU pass in the slot and rifled a shot over the shoulder of Sankner to make it 4-1.
Moore tacked on his second of the game — and 15th of the season — into an empty net with 3:20 to play in regulation to ice the Johnnie victory.
Sankner closed out his freshman campaign with a 25-save effort against the Johnnies, while SJUs Berglove stopped kicked out 26 of SMU's 27 shots on goal.
The Cardinals end the season at 8-14-1 overall, while Saint John's — which improves to 17-7-2 overall — will host St. Olaf in one of the MIAC Playoff semifinal games Wednesday at Herb Brooks NHC in St. Cloud, Minn. Opening face-off is set for 7 p.m.
