All-American goalie Alise Riedel stopped all of 27 shots she faced en route to leading St. Thomas past St. Olaf 4-0 Saturday night in Mendota Heights.

St. Thomas (7-5-1 overall, 6-3 MIAC) outshot St. Olaf (8-6-2 overall, 4-4-1 MIAC) 34-27. The win catapulted the Tommies to second place in the MIAC standings.

“It’s always good to get a win; shutout makes it a little better, little more fun,” Riedel said.

Coach Tom Palkowski was not only pleased with Saturday’s win, he also was proud of the score.

“First and foremost anytime you can put up a zero for the other squad is huge,” Palkowski said. “For the first time in a while we competed for 60 minutes which was good to see.”

The game started with nearly five minutes of non-stop play. The first break in the game came when forward Courtney Umland scored in front of net with forward Tara Baago assisting.

Eight minutes later and with two seconds left on a power play, forward Christina Rozeke scored with the assists from defenseman Nuala Flood and forward Karina Marette after some action in front of net.

Just two minutes into the second period, forwards Kelsey Barnier and Rachel Friberg assisted forward Paige Baldwin wrap around goal, giving St. Thomas a 3-0 lead.

Baago scored the final goal of the night with less than three minutes left in the second period. Forward Jenny Saxon passed the puck from the Tommie zone to a streaking Baago at the Oles’ blue line, who then broke away from the St. Olaf players to score her second goal of the season.

Baago said she and her linemate Saxon just talked about the play in the locker room beforehand.

“It worked out well. I just saw the upper corner and shot it there,” Baago said.

While passing was solid from both teams during the third period, no goals were scored.

Palkowski said he thinks St. Thomas has more speed than St. Olaf and that will be the key to tomorrow’s match.

“We need to go out and set the tone,” Palkowski said. “We need to just keep crashing the net.”

Riedel said she’s taking in the momentum from tonight’s game into tomorrow’s.

“We saw how they played. We don’t know if they’ll switch up their goalie,” Riedel said. “We’ll just keep going, working hard, put together 60 minutes.”

The Tommies play the second game of the series Sunday in Northfield.

Caroline Rode can be reached at rode8318@stthomas.edu.