Box Score

LA CROSSE, Wis. — For Saint Mary's University baseball coach Nick Whaley, Tuesday's nonconference game against Viterbo had its good side.

And its bad side.

The good? SMU scored a season-high 10 runs — and got a 2-for-4, 4-RBI performance from Dan Cosgrove (South St. Paul, Minn.) to highlight the Cardinals' 12-hit attack.

The bad? SMU gave up five runs in the bottom of the eighth inning, erasing a 10-7 lead and sending the V-Hawks to a 12-10 win over the Cardinals at the Viterbo Athletic Complex.

The Cardinals got the offensive fireworks started early, as Cris Collins (Rochester, Minn.) opened the game with his first collegiate home run. The V-Hawks responded with two runs in the bottom of the first, before SMU regained the lead 7-3 with back-to-back three-run innings in the third and fourth. Cosgrove, Nick Winecke (St. Paul, Minn.) and Seth Pugh (Crystal, Minn.) delivered run-scoring singles in the third, while Cosgrove belted a three-run home run in the fourth to account for all three fourth-inning runs.

SMU got single runs in the fifth and seventh, while Viterbo countered with one run in the fifth, one in the sixth and two in the seventh to cut the SMU lead to 9-7. The Cardinals got an insurance run in the top of the eighth on an RBI groundout by Winecke, but they couldn't make the three run lead hold up as Viterbo sent nine batters to the plate — including four straight walks to open the inning — and scored all five runs on just one hit in handing SMU its sixth straight setback.

The Cardinals, who return to MIAC play Wednesday, traveling to Gustavus for a 2:30 p.m. doubleheader, fall to 3-10 overall, while Viterbo, winners of four straight, improve to 13-17.