WINONA, Minn. - If Saint Mary's University men's hockey coach Don Olson could have one wish, it would be to allow his Cardinals to have a "do over" of the first period of last Saturday's Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference game against Bethel.

The Royals erupted for four goals in the game's first 20 minutes, then held on for dear life in posting a 5-3 win over the Cardinals and complete a sweep of their two-game MIAC series.

"I don't know what happened in that first period," said Olson, whose team was beaten 5-1 in the teams' first meeting on Friday. "It was like, boom, before we knew what hit us, we were down 4-0."

Bethel converted on four of their 11 shots as Kris Birch sandwiched two goals around goals by Dan Bonne and Neal Carlson all beat SMU starting goalie Ryne Ess (Eden Prairie, Minn.) and give the Royals a 4-0 lead heading into the locker room after one period.

Olson made a change in goal, replacing Ess with Nick Berra (St. Louis, Mo.), and the move ignited the Cardinals, as they scored three unanswered goals - the first by Adam Fingerhut (Oak Brook, Ill.) just 51 seconds into the period, and the others by Tim McNamara (Hastings, Minn.) and Graham Murphy (St. Louis, Mo.) 30 seconds apart late in the period - to pull within one, 4-3, heading into the game's final 20 minutes.

Jeff Balvin iced the win for the Royals (2-0-0 MIAC, 6-2-0 overall), beating Berra with less than two minutes left in regulation.

The Cardinals had entered the weekend with one of the nation's best powerplays and one of its best penalty kills, as well.

Unfortunately for SMU, there wasn't anything special about SMU's special teams in Friday's 5-1 loss.

The Royals converted on 1 of 5 powerplay opportunities and added a pair of shorthanded goals en route to the win.

"It was one of those games," said Olson, whose team had its two-game winning streak snapped with Friday's loss. "I don't know how to explain it, but this was the first game this season that we lost our composure a bit. Even when we were down 3-0 in the third period against UW-Superior - which was ranked No. 5 in the country at the time - we never letdown, we kept battling and outplayed them in the third period (of the 3-2 loss).

"But (Friday), once we fell behind, we didn't have that fire."

The Royals got on the board late in the first period as Balvin scored the first of the Royals' two shorthanded goals, beating Ess high on the short side with just 1:02 remaining in the period.

The Cardinals evened the score on Fingerhut's third goal of the season, but Bethel roared right back, netting a powerplay goal off the stick of Dan Ubl two minutes later.

Dan Bonne pushed Bethel's lead to 4-1 with back-to-back goals seven minutes apart midway through the first period, and Jeff Balvin completed the scoring with a shorthanded goal from his stomach with 12 seconds left in regulation.

"You've got to tip your hat to (Bethel), defensively they did a nice job of packing people in around their goalie and keeping the shots out," said Olson. "This weekend we didn't put our best game on the ice either night. If we are going to be successful, we have to be at our best.

"Anything less that that won't won't do," Olson continued. "It cost us (against Bethel) and we can't afford it to happen again this weekend (agianst league-leading St. Thomas)."