THE MATCHUP

Saint Mary's vs. UW-Eau Claire vs. Saturday, Jan. 29, 2005 SMU Ice Arena 2:05 p.m.

GAMEDAY PLAYER PROFILE

Val Rodriguez Year Freshman Position Forward/ Defense Hometown Woodbury, Minn.

For the official GameDay Program for today's game pdf / click here (pdf)

WINONA, Minn. — Last Friday night, they were unruly guests.

And on Sunday, the Gustavus women's hockey team was anything but a gracious host.

The Gusties, who left the SMU Ice Arena Friday with a 4-0 win — outshooting Saint Mary's University 59-8 — managed just 51 shots on goal in Sunday's Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference rematch. But GAC made better use of their offensive output, scoring once in the first period, three times in the second and twice in the third en route to a 6-0 win and a sweep of the Cardinals.

"(Gustavus is) a very, very good team," said SMU coach Duncan Ryhorchuk, whose team had its two-game winning streak snapped in Friday's loss. "They pretty much dominated the play, but to be honest, I thought our performance (Friday) was one of the better efforts we've had all year."

In fact, had the Cardinals gotten a break or two Friday night - despite the 59-8 Gustie advantage in shots on goal — the score could have very easily been 4-4.

Really.

"When you look at the scoresheet, it looks pretty bad, but when you look at the chances we had, we could have very easily picked up three or four goals," said Ryhorchuk, whose team missed three breakaways, and Melissa Mondo (Vadnais Heights, Minn.) was stymied on the doorstep early in the second period. "This was a game that could have been 4-4, or it could have been 8-0.

"You hate to keep sounding like a broken record, but we've got to start taking advantage of the scoring chances we get," said Ryhorchuk. "Three breakaways and we didn't score on any of them. With (goalie) Nikki (Jung) playing as well as she did, it's unfortunate that we weren't able to give her any offensive support.

"We had a chance to steal (a win), but we couldn't get the job done."

They better get the job done tonight against UW-Eau Claire, or the end result could be another shutout loss.

“The road doesn’t get any easier,” said yhorchuk, whose team dropped a 4-0 decision to the Blugolds on Jan. 7. “Hopefully we’ve learned from our past mistakes and can turn things around (vs. the Blugolds).”