Game 1 Box Score / Game 2 Box Score

NORTHFIELD, Minn. — Playing with a lead hasn't been a problem for the Saint Mary's University baseball team of late.

In fact, in their last four games heading into Monday's Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference doubleheader against Carleton, taking the lead wasn't the problem.

Keeping it was.

SMU blew a pair of seventh-inning leads in dropping back-to-back games to Augsburg last Friday, then let a 7-2, fourth-inning lead slip through their fingers in an 11-9 Game 1 loss to St. Thomas on Saturday.

Monday afternoon, the Cardinals once again found themselves playing from out front — and this time around, they weren't about to take any chances.

The Cardinals erupted for four, first-inning runs, padded that lead to 13-0 with nine runs in the third, then tallied four more in the fourth to take a 17-0 lead en route to a 17-4 victory — a victory that snapped SMU's season-high eight-game losing streak.

Carleton appeared to have Game 2 locked up early, racing out to an 8-0 lead, but the Cardinals took a page from the Auggies and Tommies — chipping away until the Knights' lead morphed into a 10-8 SMU advantage. Carleton regained the lead, 11-10, in the bottom of the sixth inning, and when the Cardinals' Kevin Black (Mahtomedi, Minn.) was thrown out at the plate to end the SMU seventh, the Knights had secured the Game 2 victory.

"What a day," understated SMU coach Nick Whaley after watching his team erupt for a season-high 17 runs in Game 1. "The ironic thing is, I thought we played better (against both Augsburg and St. Thomas). We weren't necessarily as sharp today, but the bottom line is, we did what we had to do to get the win."

And they nearly made that "wins."

"To battle back from an 8-0 deficit like we did in the second game, that says a lot about this team — they never quit and they never stop competing," said Whaley. "It really would have been fitting for us to come away with two (wins)."

The Cardinals banged out a season-high 20 hits en route to their 17 Game 1 runs, including a two-run single by Robbie Johnson (Lake Elmo, Minn.) to highlight their four-run first, a bases-loaded double by Nick Winecke (St. Paul, Minn.) and a two-run double by Brandon Haugh (Easton, Minn.) in their nine-run third, and a two-run single by Alex Schmidt (La Crosse, Wis.) in their four-run fourth.

"We came up with a ton of clutch hits all day," said Whaley, whose team used a bases-clearing double by Zach Olberding (Maplewood, Minn.) in the fourth and another bases-loaded double by Johnson in the fifth to fuel their 10-run Game 2 output. "I think we've been pretty solid offensively of late — it was nice to finally be able to get a win for our (offensive) efforts."