Saying that the Saint Louis University men’s hockey team was overmatched against Illinois in its pair of Central States Collegiate Hockey League games last weekend would be a large understatement.

The Billikens entered the weekend against the No. 4-ranked Illini having won only three games all season and losers of nine of their last ten games at the University Ice Arena.

The “Big Pond” would once again prove to be too much for the Billikens. The No. 4-ranked Illini dominated Saint Louis, out shooting the Billikens 103-31 in 7-1 and 9-1 wins.

“We got off to a little bit of a slow start on Friday night,” head coach Chad Cassel said. “Other than that I was happy with our play all weekend. I thought we worked hard, played well and pretty much controlled the games.”

In Friday night’s game it would take nearly eight minutes for the Billikens to take their first shot of the game, but Saint Louis would stay in the game early with strong goaltending by freshman Joe Siepka.

“He shut us down for awhile,” Cassel said. “But when you’re facing 56 shots, eventually you are going to wear down.”

The Illini would finally wear down Siepka and explode for four goals and hold the Billikens to only three shots in the second period.

By the end of the night the Illini would have all seven of their goals scored by different players, and in all, 12 different Illini would grace the score sheet. Leading the way for the Illini was sophomore Alex Park, who scored one goal and added two assists in the game.

“It makes it easier knowing you can roll through four lines where everyone can put points up on the board,” Park said. “Now it’s not a matter of having one or two lines carry us. If we have our forth line out there it’s just as deadly as our first line.”

Illinois’ 7-1 win Friday night would only be a preview of what was to come Saturday night. On a night when Cassel was celebrating his birthday, the Illini players turned in an excellent performance for their coach.

The Illini’s passes were crisp, their shots were accurate and everyone seemed to be on the same page as they cruised to a 9-1 win.

Illinois’ nine goals marked the 13th game this season in which the Illini have scored seven or more goals in a game.

“When you put up that many goals it makes it easy,” senior captain Steve Krates said. “When you have a little cushion it lightens the mood on the bench a lot, and we play a lot more relaxed and confident.”

With the two wins the Illini improved to 21-5 and picked up eight points in the conference. This marks the sixth-straight season and seventh time over nine years under Cassel that the Illini have won 20 or more games in a season.

“Chad has turned this program around and we’re a top two or three team in the nation now,” Krates said. “He knows how to prepare us and playing for him makes it a lot easier because he lets us know what to do, and if you don’t do it you’re not going to play.”

Illinois will get a tougher test next weekend when it welcomes eighth-ranked and fellow 20-game winner Michigan-Dearborn to town for Alumni Weekend.

“We’re looking forward to playing in front of the alumni and show what we can do,” Park said. “We’re going to play a pretty competitive team, and hopefully we can get some more points in the CSCHL conference standings.”