Match Summary

MORRIS, Minn. — On Friday night, the Saint Mary's University volleyball team made it look easy, as the Cardinals opened the UM-Morris Triangular with a convincing 3-0 victory over Crown.

And it was more of the same in their final match of the two-day tournament, as SMU rolled to a 3-0 triumph over the host Cougars.

Sandwiched in between those two sweeps, however, was a match against Northwestern — a match that was anything but easy.

The Cardinals rallied from a 2-0 deficit with a Game 3 win, but the Eagles routed SMU in the fourth and deciding game to hand the Cardinals a 3-1 setback.

"This was a good weekend for us," said SMU coach Mike Lester. "We did not play very well in the second match (vs. Northwestern), but in the other two matches, I thought we played very well.

"And the last match, against Morris, was probably the most important match of all," continued Lester. "By winning your final match of the weekend, you leave feeling good about the way you are playing, where as, if you lose that match, any momentum you may have gained is lost."

After riding a balanced attack in their sweep of Crown on Friday, the Cardinals rode the right arms of Molli Dant (Forest City, Iowa) and Pam Stanton (Mundelein, Ill.) on Saturday. Dant hammered out a team- and match-best 16 kills vs. Northwestern and added 16 more vs. UM-Morris, while Stanton chipped in 10 kills vs. Northwestern and 12 vs. the Cougars.

"We got some very good individual efforts, but, more importantly, we played well as a team," Lester said. "Things really seemed to click for us this weekend."

After snapping a three-match losing streak in which SMU failed to win a game vs. St. Thomas, Carleton and Winona State with a 3-1 triumph at Augsburg last Wednesday, Lester is hoping his Cardinals can ride the momentum of three wins in their last four matches as they close out the final two weeks of the season.

"Beating Augsburg (last Wednesday) kept our hopes of getting into the conference tournament alive — they're slim hopes, but we still have a shot," said Lester, whose team has two Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference matches left — Wednesday at home vs. St. Olaf and Wednesday, Oct. 25, at home vs. Gustavus. "All we can do now is take care of our business and hope for some help along the way.

"We've still got a lot of work to do, and it's nice to head into the final portion of the schedule on a high note."