WINONA, Minn. — This time around, four actually wasa lucky number for the Saint Mary's University men's hockey team.

After losing four straight games — all after allowing four goals against — the Cardinals turned the tables on Saturday, scoring four goals themselves, including Chad Damerow's (Albert Lea, Minn.) game-winner 36 seconds into overtime, as SMU beat St. John's 4-3.

"That was a huge, huge win for us," said SMU coach Don Olson, whose team hadn't won since a 6-2 victory over St. Thomas two weeks ago. "I thought the effort we put forth, not just tonight, but all weekend (including Friday's 4-2 loss to the Johnnies), was outstanding. It's nice to get a win for all their efforts."

But it certainly wasn't easy.

The Cardinals got on the board first on a goal by Eric Thom (Portland, Ore.) at the 5:24 mark, but the Johnnies netted the next two — powerplay goals by Rick Talbot and Bryan Talbot — to take a 2-1 advantage into the locker room after the first 20 minutes.

The second peirod, however, belonged to the Cardinals. Ryan Holland (Winona, Minn.) scored 1:33 into the period to tie the game and B.J. Gaustad's (Portland, Ore.) goal at the 14:56 mark gave SMU a 3-2 lead. Chad Schmidt got the equalizer for the Johnnies early in the third period, setting up Daerow's OT heroics.

"It was a good thing (Chad) scored that goal early in the overtime, because we were definitely running out of gas," said Olson. "The guys gave it everything they had — they left it all on the ice."