NORTHFIELD, Minn. – The St. Olaf College men's hockey team surged out to a 3-0 lead and held on for a 4-2 victory over the eighth-ranked College of St. Scholastica to finish off a four-point weekend on Saturday at St. Olaf Ice Arena.

St. Olaf (8-8-3, 4-4-2 MIAC) scored twice in the span of nine seconds late in a dominant first period and added a goal early in the second to establish a 3-0 lead in the first 21-plus minutes of play. St. Scholastica (12-4-1, 5-2-1 MIAC) got back into the game by scoring the next two goals to make it a 3-2 game after two, but junior Connor Kalthoff sealed the win with an empty-netter for the Oles with 1:48 to go.

The win improved St. Olaf to 2-0-1 in its last three games against nationally-ranked teams and came after the Oles and Saints played to a 3-3 tie the night before in Duluth. St. Scholastica fell to 2-4-1 in its last seven games after starting the season with 10 victories in a row.

Junior Cody Sherman had a goal and an assist and was 22-of-34 on faceoffs for St. Olaf in the win, while sophomore Kelijah McElroy tallied a pair of assists. Kalthoff and senior Parker Casey accounted for the other two goals for the Oles, who outshot the Saints by a 42-18 margin.

St. Olaf took all 23 of the opening period's shots on goal and held St. Scholastica to just one attempted shot in a one-sided opening period but had to wait until the final two minutes of the period to get on the board. Eino Rissanen helped the Saints weather the early bombardment from the Oles with 21 first-period saves.

With 1:50 to go in the first, St. Olaf finally broke through when Sherman drove to the net from the left side and scored on the backhand for his fifth goal of the season off assists from first years Tony Leahy and Bjorn Lervick. The Oles added a second goal just nine seconds later, as Young flipped the puck in from close range after McElroy drove into the offensive zone off the faceoff and got the puck to Young for his team-leading seventh goal of the season.

The nine seconds between goals marked the fastest consecutive goals for St. Olaf since also scoring nine seconds apart against Lake Forest College on Nov. 26, 2011. The nine-second gap was the joint third-fastest time between goals for the Oles dating back to at least 2001.

St. Olaf continued to pile on the pressure early in the second and extended its lead to 3-0 on Casey's third goal of the season just 1:08 in. McElroy picked up his second assist in less than three minutes of game time when Casey tipped in his shot from the right side, with sophomore Gunnar Johnson also collecting an assist on the goal.

St. Scholastica finally got its first shot on goal on the power play four minutes into the second period but cashed in on the power play at the 4:34 mark when Nick Lanigan tucked in a loose puck off a blocked shot on the Saints' second shot on goal of the game. The visitors continued their climb back into the game later in the period when Arkhip Ledenkov scored in front off a backhand pass from Carsen Richels after Richels was denied on a breakaway by junior Thomas Lalonde. Ledenkov nearly tied the game at 3-3 with 3:15 to go in the period, but his shot from the right circle rang off the post on another St. Scholastica power play.

St. Olaf limited the visitors to six shots on goal in the third period to see out the win. Lalonde preserved the Oles' lead with nine minutes remaining by thwarting Fillimon Ledenkov on a breakaway for the biggest of the junior's 16 saves in the win. Kalthoff sealed the victory with his third goal of the weekend with 1:48 to go, sending the puck into an empty net after Sherman won a neutral-ice faceoff back to the junior. Lalonde improved to 4-2-2 on the season with the 16-save performance, while Rissanen took the loss despite a 38-save outing.

St. Olaf and Concordia-Moorhead face off in their series opener on Tuesday, Jan. 23 at St. Olaf Ice Arena in a rare week-night game due to the teams participating in the Hockey Day MN festivities in Warroad on Friday, Jan. 26.