Game 1 Box Score / Game 2 Box Score

WINONA, Minn. — With one swing of the bat, St. John's summed up the entire season for the Saint Mary's University baseball team.

The Cardinals took a 3-1 lead into the top of the seventh inning of Game 2. Jesse Pedersen (St. Charles, Minn.) – who had allowed just three hits through six innings — gives up a lead-off single to Scott LaVoy, but gets the next two batters to fly out to center field. A two-out error by Dan Cosgrove (South St. Paul, Minn.) pulls the Johnnies within one, 3-2, and one batter later, Chris Bell belts a 1-2 offering over the fence for a two-run home run.

From ahead by two runs, to 4-3 losers, It's been that kind of year.

"What can I say? That's the way the season has gone all year," said SMU coach Nick Whaley, whose team dropped the opener of its Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference doubleheader against the Johnnies 6-0. "We put ourselves in position to win, don't make a play here or there, and before you know it, we go from being ahead to being behind.

"Jesse pitched a great game — could have gotten a third strike (on Bell), but didn't, and boom, the next pitch (Bell) hits out."

SMU jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the second game, getting an RBI double from Pat Jacobson (Stillwater, Minn.) in the second and RBIs from Jacobson and Ryan Majerus (St. Charles, Minn.) in the fourth.

St. John's got one back in the fifth, then ended any hopes SMU had of salvaging a split with its three-run seventh.

The Cardinals could not generate any offense against Cole Deibele in the opener, managing just five hits — two in the first, and one in the second, third and sixth — none of which went for extra bases. SJU, meanwhile, scored single runs in the third and fifth, then broke the game open with two in the sixth and two in the seventh off SMU starter Pat Gornick (West St. Paul, Minn.).

"It's tough to lose a game like that second one," said Whaley, whose team falls to 5-10 in the MIAC and 8-19 overall with the losses. "But what was nice to see is the way we bounced back after the first game. We did not swing the bats that well (in Game 1), and I thought we did a much better job in the second game. We never gave up, we kept battling.

"Unfortunately, the guys weren't rewarded for those efforts."