The men’s hockey team couldn’t pull off a win against first-place Hamline Saturday night at St. Thomas’ home arena in Mendota Heights, losing 2-1.

But the hard-fought game left the team feeling more optimistic than it felt Friday night when Hamline (11-3-3 overall, 6-0-2 MIAC) shut out the Tommies (10-9 overall, 5-5 MIAC) 6-0.

“Compared to last night, it was a lot better,” senior captain Andrew Kappers said. “They capitalized on all our mistakes Friday, but tonight we did a lot of good things. Now we just need to get the pucks in the net.”

Coach Jeff Boeser agreed.

“Last night [Friday] we had probably 10 minutes in the first period and 10 minutes in the last period where we played good, and in between we didn’t play very well,” he said. “Tonight we finished hits, played hard and didn’t give Hamline lots of space.”

The Tommies had 37 shots on goal compared to Hamline’s 22, but Piper goalie Beau Christian stopped 36 of those 37 shots.

“We weren’t hitting the back of the net,” Boeser said. “Everything else went well. We did a better job of getting pucks through tonight, because last night they blocked a lot of our shots.”

Hamline had the first goal of the game just 5:30 into the first period. Kappers scored St. Thomas’ lone goal with a little more than seven minutes left in the first period. After that, the score stayed tied 1-1 until Hamline answered with a second goal 1:19 into the third period.

Boeser said one thing that hurt the team was the two penalties in the last five minutes of the game, which prevented the Tommies from playing at full strength.

“I was not happy with that,” he said. “You can’t take penalties when you’re down. We have to be smart.”

Kappers said the team has had many ups and downs this season.

“We kind of have a rollercoaster going,” he said. “We play good one game, and not the next.”

But Kappers added that the team has many strengths, such as good forwards and a solid defense, that work in the team’s favor.

“If we play like we did tonight, good things will happen,” he said.

Senior captain Phil Johnson agreed, and said he thinks the Tommies will be successful in their upcoming games against St. Mary’s.

“There are no bad teams in the MIAC, but if we keep the same intensity and drive as we did today, we are going to win most of our games and we’ll do well this weekend,” Johnson said.

“I was proud of how the guys laid it out on the line and played with a lot of heart tonight,” he added. “It hurts to lose, but we can still be proud of that.”

The Tommies will play at St. Mary’s Friday and will play St. Mary’s again Saturday at home.

Katie Broadwell can be reached at klbroadwell@stthomas.edu.