WINONA, Minn. — For the Saint Mary's University men's soccer team, the search continues.

For a goal — and for a win.

The Cardinals saw their season-opening losing streak climb to five straight last Friday afternoon, as Central-Iowa scored once in the first half and twice in the second en route to a 3-0 victory over SMU.

Not only was the loss the fifth straight for SMU (0-5-0 overall), but it also marked the fourth straight game in which the Cardinals failed to score a goal. In fact, the Cardinals scoreless string climbed to 428 minutes, dating back to the 18th minute of their first game of the season, when Brian Reddish (Crystal Lake, Ill.) scored SMU's only goal of the year in a 3-1 loss to Pacific Lutheran.

"What's really frustrating is that we aren't playing all that poorly — certainly not bad enough to be 0-5," said SMU coach Eric Luzzi. "Against Loras (a 2-0 loss on Sept. 5) we outshot them nearly 2-1, but still lost. Against Central, we dominated the game — we kept them bottled up in their end for six, seven minutes at a time, and we still lose 3-0.

"My biggest fear is that this (losing streak) is going to start affecting our guys' confidence — and it shouldn't. They are doing everything right except for that small piece of the puzzle called finishing."

There are plenty of logical reasons for the Cardinals' sluggish start — none more obvious than the fact that SMU has yet to put its best 11 players on the field at the same time.

Injuries have cost Luzzi the services of three starters, as well as his top player off the bench. Yet, Luzzi isn't about to use that excuse — or any of a handful of others at his disposal — as a crutch for his team's dismal start.

"We've had our share of adversity, that's for sure," Luzzi admitted. "But you have to be able to work through those things. We need to just keep working hard and battling through this.

"Things are going to get better."

They better — and fast.

With league-champion and perennial national power Macalester next up, the Cardinals can ill afford a less-than-perfect performance — or 0-6 could be a very real possibility.

"It's tough to open your (MIAC) schedule with Macalester, and to do it without four of your top players makes it that much tougher, " said Luzzi, who will have to play the Scots without starters Mike Boland (Lake Zurich, Ill.), Mike Lackey (Perryton, Texas), John Brown (St. Joseph, Mich.) and top reserve Patrick Tollaksen (Racine, Wis.). "But what can you do? We just have to go out there and play the way we're capable and let the chips fall where they may."