WINONA, Minn. — The last time the Saint Mary's University men's hockey team played on its home ice, the Cardinals came away with a 6-2 \victory over St. Thomas that snapped a four-year winless streak against the Tommies.

SMU returned to the friendly confines of the SMU Ice Arena again Friday evening, only this time, when the final horn sounded, a streak was still intact.

Augsburg scored the game's first three goals and held off a furious third-period SMU rally en route to a 4-2 Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference victory. The win not only extended SMU's losing streak to two games (the Cardinals dropped the second game of last weekend's series with St. Thomas 4-2), but it extended SMU's winless streak against the Auggies to 0-9-1.

The Cardinals have not beaten Augsburg, since a 4-1 win on Feb. 21, 1997, in the first game of their two-game MIAC series.

Brad Schwartzbauer gave Augsburg a 1-0 advantage as he beat SMU goalie Eric Richardson (Skokie, Ill.) with just under three minutes remaining in the opening period. Joe Johnson pushed the Auggies' lead to 2-0 at the 13:37 mark of the second period and Jaro Cesky made it 3-0 two minutes into the third.

SMU's Chad Damerow (Albert Lea, Minn.) then took matters into his own hands, scoring back-to-back goals less than two minutes apart midway through the third period to pull the Cardinals (6-2-1 MIAC, 11-5-2 overall) within one, 3-2.

Jake Wegscheider, however, pushed the Augsburg (4-4-1 MIAC, 8-7-3 overall) lead back to two, 4-2, at the 14:57 mark, and goalie Peter Samargia stopped 15 of the Cardinals' 17 third-period shots to preserve the win.