WINONA, Minn. — Saint Mary's University women's soccer coach Dan Blank was bound and determined to put last season behind him — out with the old, and in with the new was his motto heading into last weekend's season-openers against Friday's season-opener against Viterbo at SMU's Ochrymowycz Field.

Unfortunately, as much as Blank wanted to forget the offensive woes of 2002 — when the Cardinals managed just two goals all season — the new looked eerily similar to the old.

Viterbo scored three first-half goals en route to a 3-0 victory over the Cardinals in the teams' season-opener on Friday, then Benedictine made its lone first-half goal stand up as the Eagles handed SMU its second straight shutout loss, 1-0, on Sunday.

"It's frustrating, because we are creating some very good scoring opportunities, but we are not converting on them," said Blank. "We played extremely well in the second half of both games, but we didn't have anything to show for it."

SMU dominated the first 10 minutes of its game against Viterbo, yet, despite that domination, it was the V-Hawks who got on the board first, as Abbie Guilien launched a 35-yard bomb that sailed over SMU goalkeeper Dianna Kyllo's (Kasson, Minn.) head and under the crossbar to give Viterbo a 1-0 advantage.

"That first goal really hurt — we were playing so well early, it was just such a letdown that (Viterbo) was the one to score the first goal and not us," said Blank, whose team gave up another goal six minutes later, and fell behind 3-0 with less than a minute remaining in the opening half.

"We showed our inexperience a little in the first half (against Viterbo)," continued Blank, who started four freshmen. "We were trying to do too much ourselves and not using each other as much as we need to. I thought we played a much better second half and really created some good scoring opportunities."

Opportunity came knocking again against Benedictine, but for the second straight game, the Cardinals couldn't answer the door.

SMU outshot the Eagles 7-3 in the second half, but once again came up empty-handed.

"We've got to find a way to put the ball in the net, it's that simple," said Blank, whose team managed just one shot on goal in the first half against Viterbo, then failed to get a shot on goal through the first 45 minutes against Benedictine. "I think we proved to ourselves in that second half of both games how well we are capable of playing. Everyone realizes that it's going to take some time for this team to gel, but the bottom line is, we've still got to find a way to score some goals."