DULUTH, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University men's hockey team entered Saturday's rematch against St. Scholastica with an offense that was red-hot,  having netted 14 goals in its last two games — including seven in a 7-4 win over the league-leading Saints on Friday.
 
Unfortunately, the Cardinals could have used a few of those "extra" goals from Friday night in the teams' rematch on Saturday.
 
St. Scholastica, still smarting from their first conference loss of the season at the hands of the Cardinals on Friday, limited Saint Mary's to just a lone, second-period goal in dealing SMU a 4-1 setback at Mars Lakeview Arena.
 
After combining for five first-period goals in Friday's series opener, only one shot found the back of the net in the rematch on Saturday — that coming off the stick of Carsen Richels, who beat SMU goalie A.J. Ruskowski (Traverse City, Mich.) at 8:42 of the opening frame.
 
The Saints would push their lead to 2-0 just 1:36 into the second stanza, before Saint Mary's got its offense on track. Laudon Poellinger (La Crescent, Minn.) pulled Saint Mary's within one, 2-1 with a goal at 9:07 of the middle period, only to have CSS answer 40 seconds later on a goal by Nathan Driver to give the Saints a 3-1 advantage — a two-goal cushion they would carry into the third period.
 
St. Scholastica closed out the scoring with an empty-net tally off the stick of Fillmon Ledenkov with 56 seconds to play to seal the win — and push the Saints league-leading record to 12-1-1 with two games remaining in the regular-season schedule.
 
With the split, the Cardinals (7-7-0 MIAC, 11-11-1 overall) remain in the thick of the MIAC Playoff race, tied with next weekend's opponent — Concordia — for fourth place in the standings with 20 points, one point up on Bethel.
 
SMU and CC will face-off at 7 p.m. on Friday, and complete the two-game series with a 2 p.m. matinee the following afternoon, with both games played at the Saint Mary's Ice Arena.
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