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Cardinal Roster
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Cardinal Schedule
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MIAC Standings
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MIAC Statistics
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| 2006-07 Records: 4-7-1 MIAC, 7-13-1 Overall |
| Last Week's Results: St. Olaf 3, Saint Mary's 2 / Details St. Olaf 4, Saint Mary's 3 / Details |
| Upcoming Games: Fri., Feb. 16: Bethel at Saint Mary's, 7:05 Sat., Feb. 17: Saint Mary's at Bethel, 7:05 |
| Cardinal News and Notes: With the back-to-back losses to St. Olaf, the Cardinals are sitting in sixth place in the MIAC playoff chase, five points behind Augsburg for the fifth and final playoff spot. SMU closes out its season against league-leading Bethel (9-2-1 MIAC) and St. Thomas (8-4-0 MIAC), while the Auggies square off against Hamline (3-9-0 MIAC) and Concordia (2-10-0 MIAC), Any combination of SMU loss and Augsburg win eliminates the Cardinals from playoff contention. … The Cardinals' last six meetings vs. St. Olaf have all been decided by one goal — including five straight 3-2 decisions, a streak that was snapped by last Saturday's 4-3 St. Olaf win. … After winning a season-high three straight in late January, SMU has now dropped three in a row. … Adam Gill (Rochester, Minn.) netted his team-leading 12th goal of the season vs. the Oles. Gill is currently second in points with 21, four behind team-leader Anthony Bohn (Spring Hill, Fla.) . … Bohn also leads the team in assists (17), and he and Gill are two of seven SMU players with at least 10 points this season. … Deven VanHouse (Silver Bay, Minn.) scored his first collegiate goal vs. the Oles on Saturday. … The Cardinals have scored more than two goals just four times in their 13 losses this season. |
hit with back-to-back, one-goal losses to St. Olaf
WINONA, Minn. —
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Deven
VanHouse Netted his 1st collegiate goal vs. Oles |
They repeated that feat year ago — with the Saint Mary's University men's hockey team coming away with the two, one-goal, 3-2 wins.
Last Friday night, they were at it again, posting their fifth straight 3-2 decision — with the Oles coming out on top.
The loss was just the third one-goal game of the season for the Cardinals, who had posted a 2-1 win over Saint John's and were 2-1 overtime victims to Gustavus.
One-goal games were nothing new for St. Olaf, on the other hand, as the Oles entered Saturday's rematch at the SMU Ice Arena veterans of 15 one-goal games.
Make that 16.
The Oles scored three unanswered goals — including two in the third period — then held off a furious SMU comeback attempt in the game's final five minutes to post a 4-3 win over the Cardinals.
"It's hard to hang your head in a game like that. I thought we played well — much better than we did Friday night," said SMU coach Don Olson, whose team has now dropped three straight after having put together a season-high three-game winning streak. "The problem is, moral victories aren't worth much — especially at this time of the year.
"St. Olaf is a good team, they are among the top three in the conference and they should be — they are a very talented team," Olson added. "To lose two, one-goal games like that is pretty tough to swallow."
St. Olaf got on the board first, scoring the only goal of the first period as Jeff Budish beat SMU goalie Dan Smith (Rochester, Minn.) with less than five minutes remaining to give the Oles a 1-0 advantage.
Deven VanHouse (Silver Bay, Minn.) pulled SMU even, netting his first collegiate goal off a St. Olaf turnover five minutes into the second period, and Mike Christensen (Detroit Lakes, Minn.) gave the Cardinals their only lead of the game with his sixth of the season five minutes later.
Nick Stalock would get the Oles even before the end of the second period, and Andy Ockuly and Stalock would add third-period goals to stake St. Olaf to a 4-2 advantage. Andy Roberts (Rochester, Minn.) cut the gap to 4-3 with his fourth of the year, and SMU threatened four minutes later, but Jeff Miller's (Portage, Mich.) shot clanked off the crossbar.
"We had our chances, we just can't seem to buy a break right now," Olson said. "I can't fault the guys' effort — that was probably the hardest we've worked all year. Unfortunately, sometimes that hard work gets rewarded, and sometimes it doesn't.
"We certainly played well enough to win both games, we just weren't able to catch a break."