Hopeful of using its victory 24 hours earlier as a springboard, Colorado College ran into Danny Kristo one more painful time on Saturday.

Kristo, a burr in CC's saddle throughout his career, scored twice and assisted on two more goals to fuel the University of North Dakota to a 5-3 victory over the Tigers at Engelstad Arena.

The senior forward's performance allowed UND to salvage a split of the teams' weekend series in Grand Forks and remain within earshot of first place in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association. Now 13-6-3 overall and 8-3-3 in WCHA play, North Dakota is just a point behind league-leading Denver and Nebraska Omaha.

Colorado College, meanwhile, lost for the 10th time in its last 14 outings to drop to 9-13-2 overall and 6-9-1 in conference play despite a pair of first-period tallies by senior Scott Winkler and a power-play goal by Rylan Schwartz that knotted the contest at 3-3 early in the third frame.

Schwartz also picked up an assist to bump his team-leading points total to 30 (11g,19a) for the season.

But Kristo, whose 11th goal of the season tied the contest at 1-1 in the opening period before setting up Mitch MacMillan's first to put UND ahead 3-2 at 13:22 of the second, wasn't quite done. It was his rebound that sophomore Dan Senkbeil whacked past CC goaltender Josh Thorimbert for the game winner with 12:15 left in regulation. And, ultimately, it was Kristo who applied the final dagger into an empty net with 1:06 remaining on the clock.

In 11 career appearances against the Tigers, the nation's top active career scoring leader has amassed nine goals and seven assists.

For the second night in a row, the visitors built a 2-1 lead after 20 minutes of play. They out-shot North Dakota, 12-4, in the opening period but managed only one attempt on freshman netminder Zane Gothberg during the second, when UND peppered Thorimbert with 15.

Gothberg, playing in just his third contest, finished with 21 saves compared to Thorimbert's 26.

Ninth-place Colorado College, which has played six consecutive games on the road, returns home to take on the University of Minnesota Duluth next weekend.