Game 1 Box Score / Game 2 Box Score

WINONA, Minn. — Saint Mary's University baseball coach Nick Whaley is a patient man.

And all season, he has patiently waited for his Cardinals to put all the pieces — pitching, hitting and defense — together for an entire afternoon.

And after watching his Cardinals' performance against Saint John's Wednesday afternoon, he's still waiting.

The Cardinals managed just nine hits, committed four errors, and Saint John's teed off on six different SMU pitchers, as the Johnnies swept the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference doubleheader, 8-7 and 10-1.

"Today was a bit of a struggle all the way around," admitted Whaley, whose team fell to 1-3 in the MIAC and 3-13 overall with the two losses. "It was one of those days when everything seemed to be working against us.

"A lot of times you like to play two (doubleheaders) back-to-back like this, but I think maybe it brought out some of our weaknesses," continued Whaley, whose team rode the two-hit pitching of Matt Popek (Eagan, Minn.) and the two-home run performance of Kevin Black (Mahtomedi, Minn.) to an 8-3 win in the first game of Tuesday's doubleheader split vs. Carleton. "We've had so many days where we've gotten good pitching, but offensively we've struggled; or we've done a nice job at the plate, but defensively we haven't been as sharp as we've needed to be.

"This was one of those times where nothing went well for us."

SMU spotted the Johnnies a 6-1 lead in the opener, as SJU tagged SMU starter David Reiter (Elgin, Minn.) for eight hits and six runs in three innings of work. The Cardinals cut the gap to 6-3 in the fourth, but the Johnnies answered with two runs of their own in the top of the fifth. The Cardinals then made things interesting, scoring four times — including RBI doubles by Brady Knudsen (Racine, Wis.) and Brandon Haugh (Easton, Minn.) — to make it a one-run, 8-7 game, but that was as close as they would get.

And it didn't get any better in the nightcap, as a pair of Johnnie pitchers held SMU to four hits — including an RBI, pinch-hit single by Ryan Lynch (St. Paul, Minn.) in the fifth — while SJU scored its 10 runs on seven hits, and took advantage of three SMU errors in completing the MIAC sweep.

"With a young team like we've got, you are going to have days like this," said Whaley. "I was happy with the way we stayed with the game — especially in the opener. We kept battling and battling, we just weren't able to get over the hump."