Men's Hockey 2/4/05 -- St. Thomas 3, Augsburg 2

BOXSCORE

MENDOTA HEIGHTS, Minn. (2/4/05) -- Freshmen Ryan Hoehn and Nick Nelson scored 56 seconds apart in the second period as the No. 12-ranked University of St. Thomas men's hockey team (11-3-4 overall, 8-1 MIAC) held off visiting Augsburg College (7-8-5, 4-4-3) in Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference men's hockey play Friday night at the St. Thomas Arena in Mendota Heights.

The team close their weekend series Saturday (2/5) at 7 p.m. at the Augsburg Ice Arena in Minneapolis.

The Tommies picked up ground on first-place St. John's, which lost 5-3 at Bethel Friday to split their weekend series. St. John's used an empty-net goal to win 3-1 Thursday night and extend its regular-season win streak to 35 and MIAC regular-season win streak to 26. The Johnnies (10-1-1 conference) play St. Thomas next weekend.

The Toms, who never trailed, remained unbeaten in 2005 (5-0-1) as nine different players had one point. Senior Kevin Hennessey stopped 23 of 25 shots and killed off two Auggie third-period power plays. Hennessey improved his goalie record to 6-0-2 on the season.

Tony Ciro (Jr., Spring Lake Park, Minn./Hill-Murray HS) stopped 29 of 32 shots for the Auggies, who scored a pair of power-play goal in the second period. Critter Nagurski (So., International Falls, Minn.) had a goal and an assist, Danny Carlson (Fr., Roseville, Minn.) had two assists and Steve Collova (Sr., White Bear Lake, Minn.) had a goal.

Dan Krmpotich scored 2:35 into the game just as a power play expired and UST took that 1-0 lead into the second period. Nagurski's goal with two seconds left in a power play tied it at 3:36 of the second, but Hoehn made it 2-1 at 6:55. Nelson scored his first collegiate goal 56 seconds later for a 3-1 lead.