Men's Hockey 12/3/05 -- St. Mary's 6, Augsburg 3

BOXSCORE

MINNEAPOLIS (12/3/05) -- Tim McNamara (Sr., Hastings, Minn.) scored two goals and added an assist, and Tom Stewart (Sr., Eden Prairie, Minn.) and Graham Murphy (Jr., Webster Groves, Mo.) had a goal and assist each, as St. Mary's University claimed a split of its Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference men's hockey series with Augsburg College, scoring a 6-3 win on Saturday night at the Augsburg Ice Arena.

St. Mary's scored the first three goals of the game, then held off an Augsburg rally to improve to 2-6-1 overall, 1-3-0 in MIAC play. Augsburg is now 5-4-1 overall, 2-1-1 in MIAC play.

Augsburg cut the lead to 4-3 midway through the third period on a power-play goal by Danny Carlson (So., Roseville, Minn.), but gave up two empty-net goals in the final minute for the final margin. Both Carlson and Aaron Johnson * (Jr., Plymouth, Minn./Robbinsdale Armstrong HS) had a goal and assist each for Augsburg.

McNamara scored the first and last goals for the Cardinals, putting the visitors on the board first with a power-play goal at the 7:03 mark of the opening frame, then scoring an empty-net goal at the 19:37 mark.

Travis VanDynHoven (So., River Falls, Wis.) gave the Cardinals a 2-0 lead at the 12:20 mark of the first period, then Murphy scored on the power play at the 3:49 mark of the second period as the Cardinals took a 3-0 lead.

St. Mary's outshot Augsburg by a 13-2 mark in the first period, though Augsburg outshot the Cardinals 25-17 in the last two periods. St. Mary's had a 30-27 shots-on-goal advantage in the game.

Augsburg rallied back into the game late in the second period, scoring twice in a 3:27 span. Colby Nichol (Fr., Grande Prairie, Alberta/Grande Prairie Composite HS) scored at the 16:12 mark, and Johnson scored at the 19:39 mark.

But St. Mary's scored the eventual game-winning goal just 84 seconds into the third period, as Stewart scored from Adam Fingerhut (Sr., Oak Brook, Ill.) and Andy Roberts (Fr., Rochester, Minn.) to give the Cardinals a 4-2 advantage. After Carlson's goal for the Auggies, Adam Gill (So., Rochester, Minn.) and McNamara scored empty-net goals for the Cardinals in the final minute.

Nick Berra (Jr., St. Louis, Mo.) made 24 saves for St. Mary's, while Tony Ciro (Sr., Spring Lake Park, Minn./Hill-Murray HS) made 24 saves for Augsburg.

Both teams have MIAC series next weekend. Augsburg has a series against St. Olaf, with the Auggies