On paper, St. Lawrence University's Saturday night rematch with the Rochester Institute of Technology should have produced a fairly comfortable win for the Saints. Unfortunately for the Saints, the game was not played on paper as R.I.T. scored four goals on its first nine shots, and then held off a late Saint rally for a 6-4 win and a split of the series.

St. Lawrence took over the national lead in power play production among all Division I teams with three in Friday's series opening 5-3 win over the Tigers and ranked second nationally in offense with 50 goals and 135 points in 13 games. RIT went into Saturday's rematch with a team goals against average which ranks 53rd among the 59 Division I teams.

The Saints, who saw a five game road unbeaten streak come to an end, fall to 7-5-2 heading into a series at North Dakota next weekend while RIT won just its second of the season and is 2-7-2 overall.

The first period was far from an offensive circus as the two teams combined for just eight shots on goal despite having two power plays apiece and the one puck which ended up in the net came off a shot which was wide of the net. RIT junior Brad McGowan was credited with the goal after his shot hit the end boards and then ended up in the net after bouncing off the back of Saint goalie Matt Weninger's leg at 6:15.

The wheels came off for the Saints in the second period as two defensive zone giveaways led to the fastest two goals in RIT Division I history and an errant Saint shot rolled around the boards and set up a breakaway which resulted in junior Brandon Thompson's first career goal in his 49th game.

Danny Smith started the siege, scoring his first of the year after a Saint turnover deep in the SLU end at 3:58. Another turnover set up Mike Colavecchia's sixth of the season at 4:07 and a Saint shot which sailed wide and rode the boards right to the stick of Thompson set up his breakaway at 9:19 and signaled the end of the night for Weninger, who deserved a much better fate.

The Saints got one back when Greg Carey scored his ninth of the year on a Saint power play from Matt Carey and Gavin Bayreuther at 11:35, but RIT answered that when Dan Schuler scored his fourth of the year on a breakaway, tucking the puck between the pads of Saint backup Kyle MacDonald at 12:12. Justin Baker made it a 5-2 game after two periods when he scored his fourth of the year from Jeremy Wick and Kyle Essery at 19:33.

The Saints made it interesting in the third, but the rally came a little too late to pull the game out.

Jeremy Wick scored his second power play goal of the game, taking a pass from Pat Doherty and converting from the rim of the right faceoff circle with Justin Baker also assisting at 16:03 and just 27 seconds later sophomore defenseman Ross McMullen scored his first collegiate goal on a bomb which beat RIT goalie Mike Rotolo over the shoulder from Chris Martin to make it a 5-4 game.

SLU pulled MacDonald for an extra attacker in the final minute, but couldn't get anything rolling in the offensive end and RIT iced it with Schuler's second of the game into the empty net with 10.1 seconds left.