Men's Hockey 1/18/03 -- Augsburg 3, St. Mary's 2 

BOXSCORE

WINONA, Minn. (1/18/03) -- When things are clicking and your team is playing well, the game of hockey seems to easy and effortless.

On the other hand, when things aren't clicking and it seems like every bounce and break goes against you, hockey can be a very frustrating sport.

Just ask the Saint Mary's University men's hockey team.

Friday evening, the Cardinals outshot Augsburg 56-25 — but came out on the short end of a 6-3 decision.

Twenty-four hours later, the Cardinals put another 28 shots on the Augsburg net, only to have Pete Samargia stop 24 — and the goal post stop two others in the game's final minute — as the Auggies completed the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference sweep with a 3-2 victory Saturday evening at the SMU Ice Arena.

"It's frustrating," admitted SMU coach Don Olson, whose team has now dropped four straight conference games to fall to 3-5-0 in the MIAC and 9-7-1 overall. "Just like Friday night, we created some great scoring opportunities — especially late in the third period — but we just couldn't put the puck in the net.

"We have two shots (in the final minute) go off the post, and another hits the shaft of (Samargia's) stick. When you are playing well, those kind of things don't seem to happen — those kind of shots seem to find their way into the net. But when you are struggling a bit … every bounce seems to go against you."

The Cardinals fell behind 3-0 early in the first period, giving up first-period goals to Augsburg's Collin Nash and Tarik Tumusaklar, and a second-period tally to Brad Schwartzbauer.

But as down as the Cardinals were, they were far from out.

Jason Fillipp (Fox River Grove, Ill.) got SMU on the board with an unassisted goal at the 13:26 mark of the second period, and Chad Damerow (Albert Lea, Minn.) made it 3-2 just over a minute later, taking a feed from Al Schumacher (Oakdale, Minn.) and beating Samargia.

That, however, was as close as SMU would get — despite several golden opportunities.

With Augsburg's Brad Holzinger in the penalty box, SMU pulled its goalie with 39 seconds remaining. In those final 39 seconds, Schumacher and B.J. Gaustad (Portland, Ore.) both clanged shots off the post, and Samargia got the butt end of his stick on a Fillipp shot that was labeled for the upper right--hand corner.

"Right now our confidence is a little shaky," said Olson. "We just played two games in which we put 84 shots on goal and managed just five goals. It's not for lack of effort — the guys worked extremely hard in both games. We just have to find a way to continue to create the offensive opportunities we have been getting, but then to finish them off."

The teams return to MIAC action next weekend. Augsburg faces St. Olaf in a two-game series, with Friday's (1/24) game at 8 p.m. at the Northfield Ice Arena, and Saturday's (1/25) game at 7 p.m. at the Augsburg Ice Arena. St. Mary's faces league leader St. John's, with Saturday's game at 7 p.m. at St. Mary's and Sunday's (1/26) game at 2 p.m. at St. John's.