WINONA, Minn. — The third period was not kind to the Saint Mary's University of Minnesota men's hockey team in its two-game Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference series against Saint John's.
 
Just a day after surrendering four goals in the games' final 20 minutes in Friday's 5-4 loss to the Johnnies, the Cardinals gave up three third-period goals in Saturday's rematch, as Saint John's broke open a one-goal game and handed Saint Mary's a 4-2 setback.
 
"We just did not seem to play with any type of urgency today," said Saint Mary's coach Bill Moore, whose Cardinals were eliminated from MIAC Playoff contention with Saturday's setback. "I didn't think we necessarily played poorly, we just didn't put forth the kind of effort I was hoping for.
 
"We knew we needed to get at least one win this weekend to have any hope of playing in the post-season—we just weren't able to get it done."
 
Saint John's Huba Sekesi finally broke a scoreless deadlock late in the second period, taking a feed from Zach Glienke and beating Cardinal goalie Jake Tugnutt (Peterborough, Ontario) with 1:49 remaining in the middle stanza.
 
The Johnnies would push their lead to 2-0 four intues into the third on a goal by Sam Valerius, before Andrew Commers and Matt Colford netted back-to-back goals three minutes apart to give SJU a commanding 4-0 advantage.
 
Jonathon Elliott (Bloomfield Hills, Mich.)—one of three seniors playing his final collegiate game—scored for the second straight day at 16:45 of the third, and Chad Cesarz (Jackson, Mich.) added his 10^th of the season at 19:23, but it was too little, too late.
 
Tugnutt finished with 28 saves in goal for the Cardinals, while Saxton Soley made 26 saves—including 14 in the third period—for the Johnnies.
 
With the loss, the Cardinals close out the season with a 6-9-1 record in conference play, and a 9-14-2 mark overall.