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Match Summary vs. St. Catherine / GameDay Online / Photo Gallery

WINONA, Minn. — Heading into Wednesday's Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference match against St. Catherine, the Saint Mary's University volleyball team had not played a match in a week — since a 3-1 loss to St. Thomas.

And the Cardinals spent that week thinking about how they let an opportunity to knock off the fifth-ranked Tommies slip through their grasp.

Which was bad news for the Wildcats, because the Cardinals took out their frustrations on them Wednesday at the SMU Gym.

Fueled by the 13-kill efforts of Amy Kujak (River Falls, Wis.) and Sarah Gardner (Rochester, Minn.), the Cardinals picked up their fifth win in their last six matches, rolling over St. Catherine 3-1 (25-21, 25-18, 22-25, 25-23).

"It was a good win for us — and at this stage in the season, every win is a big one," said SMU coach Mike Lester, whose team moved to 4-4 in the conference and into a three-way tie for fifth place in the race for one of the six MIAC playoff berths. "I wouldn't say we played all that well, but we did what we had to do."

After taking care of business in the first two sets, SMU suffered a third-set letdown in allowing the Wildcats the 25-22 win, then rebounded with a solid effort in the final set, breaking a 23-23 tie with back-to-back points to seal the win.

Along with the 13 kills from Gardner and Kujak, SMU also got 11 kills from Jessica Mate (St. Charles, Ill.) and 10 from Courtney Runge (St. James, Minn.), while Theresa Perrini (Fairway, Kan.) had 25 digs and Brittany Cherwinka (Faribault, Minn.) tallied 42 assists.

"Everyone came into this match pretty eager to get back into action — we played so well (against St. Thomas) that we were looking to pick up right where we left off tonight against St. Catherine," said Lester, whose team trailed the Tommies 2-1, but were leading the fourth set 23-20, only to give up seven of the last nine points in falling 27-25. "It wasn't our best performance, and it wasn't our worst. We did enough to get the win and that's the important thing."

The Cardinals are back in action on Friday, squaring off against Augsburg in another key MIAC match at the SMU Gym at 7 p.m.