Coming into this weekend, the Oles needed to sweep both of their final four games versus Augsburg College and St. John's University and have both of those teams lose all of their final four games to earn a berth in the MIAC playoffs.

While the Oles made things interesting on Friday night with a 5-4 win over the Auggies, they were eliminated on Saturday with an embarrassing 10-0 loss to the same Augsburg team.

Friday night's game started out extremely well for St. Olaf. Junior defenseman Chad Zwerdling gave the Oles a 1-0 lead just 7:09 into the game with a huge blast from the point on the power play. Senior alternate captain Jeff Simison gave the Oles a 2-0 lead at 4:04 of the second period on a rebound goal and the Oles were cruising towards the upset.

An Augsburg goal at 9:35 of the second period cut the lead to 2-1, but Simison scored his second goal of the game at 13:49 off a strange deflection in front of the net to give the Oles a 3-1 lead after two periods. Simison was later ejected for a checking-from-behind penalty late in the third period. Augsburg tied the game at 3-3 with goals at 3:13 and 8:06 of the third period and the momentum had clearly switched sides.

However, sophomore defenseman Brian Meyer drove wide around two Augsburg defensemen and beat goaltender Ryan McIntosh to give the Oles a 4-3 lead at 12:07. An empty netter by St. Olaf was enough to hang on for the win despite a goal with three seconds remaining for Augsburg. The Oles pulled off the 5-4 upset thanks to sophomore goaltender Jake Bullard's 38 saves on 42 shots.

The Oles slim playoff hopes were still alive going into Saturday's game at Augsburg, but they were quickly erased. Augsburg scored just 39 seconds into the game and never looked back, taking a 5-0 lead into the dressing room at the first intermission. Things got much worse for the Oles as Augsburg added three more goals in the second period to give the Auggies an 8-0 lead.

Senior forward Tim Legreid was ejected midway through the third period for a high sticking penalty and the Auggies added two more goals to give them a convincing 10-0 victory. Bullard hoped to repeat his stellar performance from Friday, but instead was shell-shocked with 10 goals on 50 shots.

Head coach Sean Goldsworthy summed up the weekend pretty well with these comments. "I believe that this weekend was a small sample of the entire season. Consistency is something we have lacked for the majority of the season," said Goldsworthy. "We have the ability to play well, but prove to be inconsistent with our play from one game to another. Against a tough schedule with nationally ranked teams, you must play more consistently on a day to day basis."

Goldsworthy added, "With that, I anticipate us to play extremely hard this weekend as it is our last two games. The seniors will look to end on a strong note and compete like it is their last games, which of course it is."

After the weekend, St. Olaf is now 8-14-1 overall (4-8-1 MIAC). St. Olaf concludes the season with its final home game on Friday at 7 pm at the Northfield Ice Arena against Saint John's University. Before the game, the Oles will pay tribute to six graduating seniors. The Oles will finish up the regular season at St. John's on Saturday night at 7 pm.