APPLETON, Wis. — When the Saint Mary's University men's hockey team stepped on the ice at the Appleton Ice Center Tuesday evening, the Cardinals had not played since beating Milwaukee School of Engineering 5-3 on Dec. 10 — a span of 24 days.
 
And the rustiness showed — for 20 minutes.
 
Once the Cardinal offense got rolling, however, they went from 0-to-6 in no time flat.
 
After coming up empty on six shots in the first period, the Cardinals erupted for six goals over the game's final two periods — including three off the stick of Nikita Sheberov (Obninsk, Russia) — en route to a 6-3 nonconference win over Lawrence.
 
With the win, the Cardinals pushed their winning streak to five straight, their longest such run since winning five in a row during the 2016-17 season, when they beat UW-River Falls (5-3), Bethel (2-1, 4-2), and St. Olaf (4-3, 3-0).
 
The Cardinals found themselves staring at an early 1-0 deficit on a goal by Lawrence's Jordan Cooper just 1:25 into the opening period — and they were almost thrust into a 2-0 hole three minutes later, but SMU goalie Matt Sankner (Pennington, N.J.) stymied LU's Brendan Vettraino on a breakaway with a nifty sliding glove save.
 
The Vikings did find a way to get a second shot past Sankner before the first period would come to a close, as Jack Michels tipped a Dante Terramani shot past the SMU netminder on the power-play late in the frame to give Lawrence a 2-0 lead through 20 minutes.
 
As good as he was between the pipes in the first period, it was Sankner's offensive skills that shifted the second-period momentum into the Cardinals' favor.
 
Sankner corralled a loose puck in the Saint Mary's zone and fed a long pass to Sheberov, who broke in on LU goalie Brian Tallieu and beat the Viking goalie to cut Lawrence's lead in half, 2-1, just 2:35 into the middle stanza.
 
After Corey Checco put the Vikings back in front by two, 3-1, on LU's second power-play tally of the evening, SMU had a golden opportunity to get back within one with under five minutes to play — only to have Tallieu thwart the Cardinals' Gabe Potyk (Lake Orion, Mich.) on a penalty shot to keep it two-goal Lawrence advantage.
 
Tallieu may have come up big against Potyk, but he was no match for the 1-2 punch of Sheberov and Warner Young (Newberry, Mich.), as the SMU duo netted back-to-back goals a minute apart late in the period to pull the Cardinals even, 3-3, heading into the game's final 20 minutes.
 
And the third period was all Saint Mary's.
 
After playing catch-up for more than 48 minutes, Saint Mary's finally grabbed its first lead of the game at 8:46 of the third period on a 5-on-3 power-play goal by Colin Tushie (Prior Lake, Minn.), and Sheberov gave the Cardinals' a little breathing room, completing his first collegiate hat trick with 5:37 remaining in regulation.
 
Thomas Magnavite (Chicago, Ill.) added an empty-net tally with 57 seconds to play for Saint Mary's fifth unanswered goal, icing the come-from-behind victory.
 
After being outshot 8-6 in the opening period, Saint Mary's outshot LU 28-15 over the final 40 minutes, with Sankner finishing with 20 saves between the pipes for the Cardinals.
 
The Cardinals (6-6-1 overall) are back in action with a pair of nonconference road games this weekend. SMU will head to Bay City Civic Arena in Ashland, Wis., for a 7 p.m. showdown with Northland on Friday, before traveling to Hobbs Ice Arena in Eau Claire, Wis., for a 7 p.m. matchup against UW-Eau Claire the following evening.
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