DE PERE, Wis. – The St. Olaf College men's hockey team could not keep pace with fifth-ranked St. Norbert College in an 8-4 season-opening loss on Friday night at Cornerstone Community Center.

In a matchup of teams that have met in the opening round in two of the last three NCAA Tournaments, St. Norbert (1-0-0) scored three times in the first 6:47 and seven times in the first 31:26 of the game on its way to defeating St. Olaf (0-1-0). The Green Knights were ranked No. 5 in the preseason USCHO.com national poll, while the Oles received votes in the balloting.

Sophomore Tyler Green, senior Jonathan Young, senior Tyler Cooper, and sophomore Tony Leahy accounted for St. Olaf's four goals in the loss, with Cooper adding an assist as well.

Ethan Byrne opened the scoring for St. Norbert 2:14 in to become the first of eight Green Knights to light the lamp on the night, but St. Olaf answered just 29 seconds later when senior Matthew Pointer centered the puck for Green to score in an odd-man rush to make it 1-1 inside the first three minutes. The Green Knights got a power-play goal from Logan Dombrowsky at 5:33 and an unassisted goal from Blake Ulve 1:14 later to open up a 3-1 lead less than seven minutes in.

The Oles responded when Young scored on the backhand off an assist from Cooper at 9:02 to make it a combined five goals 6:46 of game time. Young's goal gave St. Olaf goals on its first two shots of the game. Cameron Morris gave the hosts a 4-2 lead at the first intermission with a goal at 15:15 of the opening period, a goal that came shortly after junior Jonathan Panisa nearly tied the game by racing in on the left and driving to the net before being denied. Panisa had a team-high five shots on goal for the Oles.

Early in the second, Cooper brought St. Olaf back within a goal once again by slotting the puck between the legs of the St. Norbert goaltender from Sherman at 5:19, but the Green Knights answered just 48 seconds later to go back up by two. St. Norbert pulled away with two more goals less than two minutes apart midway through the second to take a 7-3 lead into the third.

After the Green Knights added an eighth goal early in the third, the score remained 8-3 until first year Panayioti Efraimidis set up Leahy's goal by racing up the left wing and sliding the puck to Leahy for a tap in with 1:25 to go. St. Norbert held a 36-25 advantage in shots the game and were 1-for-5 on the power play, compared to 0-for-3 for St. Olaf.

Hunter Garvey picked up the win with 21 saves for the Green Knights, while senior Thomas Lalonde and junior Tyler Laureault combined for 28 saves for the Oles.

St. Olaf will close out opening weekend with a 5:30 p.m. puck drop against Marian University on Saturday, Nov. 2 at Blue Line Family Ice Center.