Game 1 Box Score / Game 2 Box Score

ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University baseball team was flying high Thursday afternoon.

A streak-snapping, nonconference sweep will do that to a team.

Saturday afternoon, the Cardinals crash-landed.

A pair of Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference losses will do that to a team.

The Cardinals, who snapped a seven-game losing streak with their 7-4, 6-4 sweep of Luther last Thursday — SMU's first doubleheader sweep of the season — were no match for St. Thomas Saturday, as the Tommies cruised to a 7-1, 5-4 sweep Saturday afternoon.

"It's hard to feel too disappointed, I thought we played very well," said SMU coach Nick Whaley. "St. Thomas is a very good team, but in the first game, we made them out to be better than they are. We played very tight in the first game — we played the tradition (of St. Thomas), rather than the game of baseball."

The Tommies scored in every inning but the fourth in knocking off SMU in the opener, plating two runs in the first, one in the second, two in the third and one in both the fifth and sixth. The Cardinals, meanwhile, scored their lone run in the fifth on an RBI single by Brady Knudsen (Racine, Wis.).

SMU got on the board first in the rematch, scoring once in the first inning, but the Tommies responded with a single run in the second and four more in the third to take a 5-1 advantage. The Cardinals made things interesting, getting single runs in the fourth and fifth to cut the lead to 5-4, but that was as close as they would get.

"To lose two to St. Thomas is a little disappointing, but we got some very good individual performances, and I thought overall we played pretty well," said Whaley, who got a stellar showing from senior Dan Cosgrove (South St. Paul, Minn.) — who went 5-for-5 on the day and drove in three of SMU's four Game 2 runs. "I've said all season that the key for us is to keep getting better every day — and, despite the way it may look on the scoreboard sometimes, that's exactly what we're doing."