The Central Wisconsin Saints unofficially began the 2011-12 season with a 7-3 loss at the hands of the Wisconsin Dells Ducks in an exhibition game Tuesday night at K.B. Willett Arena in Stevens Point.

The Ducks jumped out to a 2-0 lead late in the first period courtesy of back-to-back goals from Jake Hainline and Michael Argyris.

Brandon Hummel put the Saints on the board minutes later cutting the Wisconsin Dells lead to 2-1 heading into the first intermission.

A goal from Kyle Harnish briefly knotted the game at two, but the Ducks regained the lead with goals from Aidan Verbeke and Cody Kromeich.

Jeremy Ebert put the Saints back within one heading to the locker room for the final time.

The third period belonged to the Ducks who rattled off three unanswered goals.

Saints head coach Mark Vichorek admitted that endurance may have been a factor in the game’s final outcome.

“We have a lot of young kids that have never played 20-minute periods," said Vichorek. You’ve got 60 minutes of a game where they are used to 51 or some even 45. For kids, especially young kids, they find that they are getting three, four, five more shifts in a game then they are used to.”

Harnish, Ebert and Max Culp each had two points on the night.

Despite the final score, the first year head coach was pleased with his team’s effort in their first game scenario, especially against a team who had nine games under its belt entering play Tuesday.

“It was beneficial for us more so than it was for them to find out where we are at this point in the season,” said Vichorek. “We did some good things out there. We had kids step up and back each other up, kids were talking on the ice for passes when they were open.”

The exhibition also gave Vichorek a chance to asses all three goaltenders.

“I felt overall that the goaltenders made some nice saves. We are going to cut down our shots against for sure, we want to be 25 or under for each game and I think that will do that once we sort our end zone.”

With just over one week until the Saints host Kalkaska in the Great Lakes Junior Hockey League opener, Vichorek and his squad turn their attention to fine tuning their game.

“The biggest thing is, we are going to perfect our end zone,” Vichorek said. “We gave up too many high quality shots…especially in the high-slot area, they got three goals on us tonight in that area. That’s an area I am going to stress because I am a big proponent of playing defense first.”