WINONA, Minn. — With seven straight weeks of conference games staring them in the face, the Saint Mary's University men's hockey team knew the importance of their final nonconference series against Milwaukee School of Engineering.

The Cardinals knew nothing less than a sweep of the visiting Raiders would do.

Last Friday, SMU took the first step toward that sweep with a dominating 6-1 victory.

And Saturday, the Cardinals picked up right where they left off, beating the Raiders by an identical 6-1 score at the SMU Ice Arena.

"Obviously, our No. 1 focus is conference play, so we wanted to make sure we were playing at a very high level heading into the final seven weeks," said SMU coach Don Olson, whose team pushed its winning streak to a season-high three games heading into next Friday's MIAC game at Bethel. "It's important for us to gain some momentum and some confidence as we return to conference play, and I think we did that this weekend."

SMU was hitting on all cylinders against the Raiders.

Offensively, the Cardinals equaled their single-season high for the third straight game, putting Saturday's game out of reach with a four-goal second period. Mike Bry (Manvel, N.D.) and Lenny Hofmann (Sartell, Minn.) each tallied a goal and two assists in Friday's win, and Hofmann netted his first collegiate hat trick — scoring three of SMU's four second-period goals — in Saturday's victory.

And defensively, SMU allowed just one goal for their third consecutive game, as Ryne Ess (Eden Prairie, Minn.) flirted with his first collegiate shutout twice, posting a 16-save effort on Friday, then stopping 23 of the 24 shots he faced in Saturday's rematch.

"It was a solid effort," said Olson said of the weekend sweep. "The first three days we were back (from the Christmas break) were a little ragged, but after that, I thought (last) Wednesday and Thursday we had great practices, and that seemed to carry over. We played with good speed and tempo — we did a lot of good things."

"I thought we started out a little slow in both games, but you have to give (MSOE) a little credit for that, they came out and battled the entire time.

"But once the game wore on, we started to move the puck better, and created some good offensive opportunities.

"This was a good series for us," said Olson, whose team improved to 6-4-1 with the win. "It allowed us to shake some of the rust off (from the nearly month-long Christmas break), and it gives us that much-needed momentum-building heading into next weekend's series with Bethel."