MENOMONIE, Wis. – The St. Olaf College men's hockey team made it back-to-back road wins over Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) opposition by riding a three-goal first period to a 4-3 win over UW-Stout on Saturday evening at Fanetti Community Center.

After the teams exchanged early goals, St. Olaf (6-7-3) got goals from Eric Brown and Jonathan Young in the span of 2:13 to take a 3-1 lead into the first intermission. The Oles stretched their lead to 4-1 in the latter stages of the second period and held off UW-Stout (5-11-0) over the final 26-plus minutes to extend their unbeaten run to four games (3-0-1).

For the second game in a row, junior Ashton Altmann netted the opening goal of the game for St. Olaf, as he threw a wrist shot at the net from near the blue line that found its way through traffic and into the net just 1:03 into the game. The goal was Altmann's fifth of the season and third in the last four games.

UW-Stout responded at the 5:37 mark of the opening period to tie the game at 1-1, as Raphael Gosselin scored just 15 seconds into a power play. Later in the period, Brown scored on a shorthanded breakaway at 10:41 to put the Oles back on top off assists from classmates Connor Kalthoff and Troy Bowditch.

Less than three minutes later, Young extended his point streak to four-straight games by out-skating at UW-Stout defenseman and holding him off before firing the puck under the bar for his second goal fo the season at 12:54. Junior Sean Salz earned his first assist of the season on the goal, while Bowditch picked up is second of the night and team-leading ninth of the season.

The Oles were assessed a major penalty with 4:53 remaining in the period but killed it off with the help of a UW-Stout minor penalty and five saves by sophomore Lukas Haugen. Leading 3-1 after 20 minutes, St. Olaf stretched its lead to 4-1 on junior Evan Shoemaker's second goal of the season at 13:30 of the second, as Shoemaker collected a pass from sophomore Sam Mudd and fired the puck into the top-left corner of the net. Kalthoff also picked up his second assist of the night on the goal for the first multi-point game of his collegiate career.

The Blue Devils got the goal back just 40 seconds later on a goal by Matt Dahlseide and made it a one-goal game with 2:59 remaining in the third on an extra-attacker tally by Caleb Serre. Trailing by just one, UW-Stout pulled its goaltender with 2:05 to go and got four shots on goal, but Haugen was equal to the task to pick up his third win of the season.

Haugen finished the game with 27 saves for St. Olaf, while Zack Cloutier suffered the loss with 18 saves for the Blue Devils after entering the game late in the first period.

The Oles travel to Gustavus on Tuesday, Jan. 18 for a 7 p.m. non-conference contest.