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THE MATCHUP

Saint Mary's vs. Bethel vs. Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2005 SMU Ice Arena 7:05 p.m.

GAMEDAY PLAYER PROFILE

Jessica Ribish Year Sophomore Position Forward Hometown Elm Grove, Wis.

WINONA, Minn. — Last Saturday afternoon at the SMU Ice Arena, the Saint Mary's University women's hockey team put together one of its best performances of the season, as the Cardinals blanked UW-Eau Claire 3-0, snapping a two-game losing streak.

In a season that has seen its share of ups and downs, it was an effort that allowed SMU coach Duncan Ryhorchuk to go to sleep with a smile on his face.

Twenty-four hors later, however, the Cardinals' effort against UW-River Falls will be giving Ryhorchuk nightmares for a long time.

UW-River Falls scored 19 seconds into the first period and never let up, erupting for eight goals en route to an 8-1 nonconference win over the Cardinals.

"We played three good periods on the weekend," said Ryhorchuk, whose team dropped to 7-10-0 overall with the weekend split. "We played an average first period and then two very good periods (against UW-Eau Claire), and then played a pretty decent second period against River Falls."

Problem was, against the Falcons, that pretty good second period was after a lousy first, in which The Falcons scored three times.

Lou Paulson kicked off the Falcons' offensive show, beating SMU goalie Amanda Gage (Lino Lakes, Minn.) before most of the 114 in attendance had even found their seats. Kelly Hurley made it 2-0 midway through the period and Paulsen netted her second of the game — with just three seconds remaining — as UW-RF headed into the locker room with a 3-0 first-period advantage.

Both teams traded second-period goals — SMU's coming off the stick of Madeline Loftus (Parsippany, N.J.) — but the Falcons dashed any hopes the Cardinals may have had of mounting a third-period comeback, as UW-RF scored four times in the final 20 minutes in handing SMU's its worst defeat since a 9-0 loss to Gustavus on Dec. 13, 1998.

Gage finished the game with 39 saves as UW-RF held a commanding 43-23 edge in shots on goal.

In Saturday's game against UW-Eau Claire — a rematch of the Jan. 7 meeting in which UWEC posted a 4-0 victory - the Blugolds were again dominating, outshooting SMU 31-12, including 17-3 in the first period.

This time around, however, the Cardinals took advantage of the scoring opportunities they did create, scoring once in the second period and adding two powerplay goals in the third to beat UW-EC, 3-0, and earn a split in their two-game series.

Val Rodriguez (Woodbury, Minn.) and Madeline Loftus (Parsippany, N.J.) each scored their first goals as Cardinals — Rodriguez's an unassisted tally in the second period and Loftus' 13 minutes into the third period on the powerplay — as SMU snapped its two-game losing streak.

Aja Walters (Fairmont, Minn.) closed out the scoring for SMU, netting her fourth of the season with less than two minutes remaining in regulation.

While SMU's sharpshooters were hitting the bullseye on the offensive end, Cardinal goalie Nikki Jung (Inver Grove Heights, Minn.) was doing her best imitation of a brick wall on the other end, stopping all 31 shots she faced for her third shutout of the season.

"Everyone's disappointed with the way the weekend ended, but there's nothing we can do about it now," said Ryhorchuk. "We know what we've got to do to make the (MIAC) playoffs, and those two games last weekend have no bearing on that."

And to make the Cardinals’ quest for one of those five conference playoff spots begins tonight against Bethel, a team SMU has never lost to, going 10-0-0.

“We’ve got four weeks to either get the job done, or our season is over,” said Ryhorchuk, whose team will travel to Bethel for the second game of the two-game conference series on Saturday. “It’s that simple.”