APPLETON, Wis. — The last time the Saint Mary's University and Lawrence men's hockey teams squared off, the Cardinals were mired in a season-high five-game losing streak.
 
And the Cardinals promptly put up a season-high eight goals in snapping that slide with a commanding 8-4 nonconference win over the Vikings.
 
Tuesday evening, the two teams faced off for a second time this season — and this time around, it was Lawrence mired in a lengthy losing streak, having dropped its last nine straight.
 
And the Vikings promptly tore a page out of the Cardinals' playbook, erupting for five unanswered goals, and held off a furious, three-goal Saint Mary's third period, in dealing SMU a 6-4 nonconference setback at the Appleton Ice Center.
 
The Vikings grabbed the upper hand, scoring the only goal of the first period, when Adam Brezicki beat SMU goalie A.J. Ruskowski (Traverse City, Mich.) with 6:57 to play in the opening frame.
 
The first intermission did little to slow down the Vikings, who — after outshooting SMU 10-5 through the game's first 20 minutes — scored three times on their first five shots to open the second stanza.
 
Jacob Jakusz kicked off the Lawrence goal-scoring barrage just 44 seconds into the second period, with Evan Izenstark making it 3-0 just 35 seconds later and Jayden Jensen following suit 28 seconds after that — and just like that, the Viking lead had ballooned to 4-0.
 
Jensen found the back of the net for a second straight time at 7:57 to make it 5-0, before Saint Mary's finally broke through at the 11:36 mark, when Gabe Potyk (Lake Orion, Mich.) scored on the power play to trim the Vikings' lead to four, 5-1 after two periods.
 
That four-goal deficit, however, was quickly cut in half before the third period was even seven minutes old.
 
The Cardinals collected their second power-play goal of the evening — this one coming from Cooper Smyl (Fairfield, Calif.) — six minutes into the third period, and Nikita Sheberov (Obninsk, Russia) made it a two-goal game, scoring his fourth of the season just 55 seconds after Smyl's tally.
 
And the Cardinals weren't finished.
 
Down by two with less than three minutes to play, SMU coach Ryan Egan pulled Ruskowski for the extra attacker — and it paid huge dividends when Kasyn Kruse (Luverne, Minn.) feathered a shot between the pads of Lawrence goalie Ken Turelli to make it a 5-4 game with 2:21 to play.
 
That, however, would be as close as SMU would get, as the Vikings got an empty-net goal from Ethan Beaumont with 26 seconds to play to seal the victory.
 
Lawrence finished with a 36-24 edge in shots on goal, with Ruskowski recording 31 saves, whle Turelli stopped 20 SMU shots.
 
The Cardinals (5-10-2 overall) are now off until Jan. 26-27, when they return to conference play with a pair of MIAC games against Bethel. Saint Mary's will host the Royals in a 7:05 p.m. contest on Jan. 26, before the two teams head to Bethel Arena in Blaine, Minn., for the 5 p.m. rematch.
  Read Full Article