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EAU CLAIRE, Wis. — For Saint Mary's University men's hockey coach
Bill Moore, next Friday's Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference game against St. Olaf at the SMU Ice Arena can't come soon enough.
The Cardinals are in dire need of some home cooking.
SMU completed a five-game road swing through Wisconsin Friday evening, and — unfortunately for Moore and the Cardinals — UW-Eau Claire was just as ungracious a host as Milwaukee School of Engineering, Marian and UW-River Falls before them.
The Blugolds scored less than two minutes into the first period, pushed that lead to 5-0 midway through the second period and cruised to a 5-2 nonconference win over the Cardinals at the Hobbs Ice Center.
“I can't fault the effort — I thought we played hard the entire game,” said Moore. “But we have to stop playing so soft. Our physical intensity has got to match that of our opponents'.
“And right now, we aren't doing that.”
Eric O'Hearn gave the Blugolds a quick 1-0 lead, scoring just 1:18 into the opening period and Arni Peled made it 2-0 four minutes later on a laser from the point that beat a screened SMU goalie
Jason Horstman (Faribault, Minn.).
Andrew Wilcox sandwiched a pair of goals around one by Jimmy McCusker in the first 15 minutes of the second period to push UW-Eau Claire's lead to 5-0.
Kevin Wentland (Columbia Heights, Minn.) got SMU on the board with 1:15 remaining in the second period, then added his second of the game — and seventh of the season — at 15:32 of the third period.
Horstman, who stopped 16 shots in the opening period, finished with 35 saves — giving the Cardinal sophomore 76 saves in SMU's two games over the weekend — while Scott Pederson stopped 21 of the Cardinals' 23 shots for the Blugolds.
“We need to get our offense going,” said Moore, whose team returns to conference play with a two-game, home-and-home series with St. Olaf beginning Friday at the SMU Ice Arena. “But we also can't be giving up 35 and 40 shots a game.
“We've still got a lot of work to do.”
