EAU CLAIRE, Wis. — The Saint Mary's University of Minnesota women's hockey team has owned the first period this season, allowing just one goal in the game's opening 20 minutes—in the Cardinals' first eight games combined.
 
Unfortunately for Saint Mary's coach Terry Mannor, UW-Eau Claire was unimpressed with the Cardinals' first-period dominance.
 
The Blugolds scored a pair of first-period goals—two minutes apart—midway through the opening stanza, and UW-Eau Claire never looked back in dealing the Cardinals a 5-1 nonconference setback Friday evening at Hobbs Ice Arena.
 
"We did not play well tonight­," said Mannor. "We've been struggling to get our offense going, and until we got that goal in the third period, you could tell our (offensive) confidence was really low—but once we finally broke the ice, we seemed to get that jump back in our steps.
 
"Hopefully, that's a sign of good things to come."
 
Elizabeth Bauer got the Blugolds on the board, scoring a power-play goal at 8:22 of the first period, and two minutes later, Sami Meister pushed the UW-Eau Claire lead to 2-0, beating Saint Mary's goalie Marah Shields (Mitford, Mich.) for her third goal of the season.
 
And the Blugolds were just getting warmed up, as Courtney Baugher and Emily Bauer each scored in the first seven minutes of the second period to push UW-Eau Claire's lead to 4-0.
 
UW-Eau Claire would add its fifth unanswered goal four minutes into the third period on a goal by Courtney Wittig, before the Cardinals finally got on the scoreboard with a power-play goal by Bailey Wendt (Coon Rapids, Minn.)—a goal that snapped Saint Mary's scoreless drought, which had spanned more than 229 minutes.
 
Wendt's goal, however, proved to be too little, too late, as the Blugolds completed their nonconference series sweep of the Cardinals.
 
Shields finished with a season-high 33 saves in goal for the Cardinals, while UW-Eau Claire goalie Erin Connolly kicked out 10 of Saint Mary's 11 shots on goal.
 
The Cardinals are back in action—and back on the road—on Saturday, heading to K.B. Willett Arena in Stevens Point, Wis., for a 7 p.m. nonconference game against UW-Stevens Point.