LA CROSSE, Wis. — The Saint Mary's University fastpitch team has taken a simple approach to scoring runs over the past week — better late than never.

The Cardinals have scored 14 seventh-inning runs in their last three games combined, and have now outscored their opponents 23-11 in the game's final inning.

It's been a philosophy that has worked to perfection as the Cardinals put together a season-best eight-game wininng streak heading into Thursday's nonconference doubleheader against UW-La Crosse.

For the Cardinals, the problem with Thursday's game was, it never made it to the seventh inning.

The Eagles scored three first inning runs, and, with a stady rain falling from the opening pitch to the final out of the fifth inning, cruised to a 4-0, five-inning victory.

"The conditions definitely weren't good for playing softball," said SMU coach Jen Miller. "It was raining from start to finish, which made it tough for everyone. We've been a bit of a slow-starting team of late, and were never really able to get anything going (against UW-La Crosse)."

The Eagles roughed up SMU pitcher Megan Wallisch (Loveland Colo.) for four first-inning hits — and took adavntage of two SMU errors — in taking a 3-0 lead. UW-L added another run in the bottom of the fifth, before the game was called due to rain.

"It's tough to lose a game like that, but for us, we've got to put it behind us and focus on Saturday's games (against Carleton)," added Miller, whose Cardinals currenlty hold down the No. 3 spot in the MIAC standings with four conference games to play — and can lock up an MIAC playoff berth with a sweep of the Knights. "We've got to come out (Saturfday) ready to play from the opening pitch — we can't afford to rely on any more late-inning heroics."