Box Score ST. CLOUD, Minn. - Nick Jensen's hat trick guided St. Cloud State to a 5-1 win and series split against No. 13/14 Denver tonight at National Hockey Center. Cory Thorson and Brooks Bertsch also scored and Ryan Faragher made 36 saves for the Huskies (7-9-4, 5-6-3 WCHA).

Junior Shawn Ostrow (Calgary, Alberta) scored and freshman netminder Juho Olkinuora (Helsinki, Finland) had 26 saves in the loss. Denver (8-7-3, 6-5-3 WCHA) allowed goals in the first minute in both the first and second periods and yielded a pair of power play goals in the loss.

"Give St. Cloud State a lot of credit for scoring on their first shift to start the first two periods," DU head coach George Gwozdecky said. "I thought we'd be ready to play after last night's win, but that wasn't the case. Our top guys struggled and Faragher was good in net for St. Cloud State."

Jensen buried a cross-ice pass from Travis Novak 34 seconds into the game and added a one-timer on the power play at 13:04 to give the Huskies a quick 2-0 lead. Ostrow finally stopped the bleeding for DU when he tapped in a Dustin Jackson (Omaha, Neb.) backhanded shot from the low slot. John Lee (Moorhead, Minn.) earned the second assist on the goal.

Jensen completed his hat trick 21 seconds into the middle period and Thorson rattled home a power-play goal at 17:39 to give the Huskies a commanding 4-1 lead.

Bertsch beat Olkinuora at 10:17 of the third period for the final goal.

DU outshot the Huskies 37-31, but went 0-for-4 on the power play. The Huskies went 2-for-5 with the man-advantage.

The Pioneers return to action on Dec. 30 against Union.

Notes: DU and SCSU have split the last four series between the teams. Jason Zucker (Las Vegas) reports to the Team USA training camp for the IIHF World Junior Championship on Sunday.