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Game Summary vs. St. Olaf / GameDay Online

NORTHFIELD, Minn. — When the Saint Mary's University volleyball team dropped back-to-back 3-0 decisions to nationally ranked Saint Benedict and Concordia last weekend, Cardinal coach Mike Lester felt pretty good about his team's performance against two of the nation's top teams.

Wednesday evening, “good” wasn't the way to describe Lester's demeanor.

“Disappointed” might be better.

The Cardinals, squaring off against St. Olaf in a key Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference match, came close — oh so close — but came up just short, as the Oles held off SMU 3-2 (25-22, 20-25, 25-22, 20-25, 15-13).

“It's disappointing in that we lost a match that really we could have just as easily won,” said Lester, whose team dropped its third straight in falling to 3-3 in the MIAC and 11-9 overall. “But like our last two matches, I'm not disappointed in the way we played, because I thought we played very well.

“We knew coming in that this was going to be a tight match, and it was that — and then some,” said Lester. “To have each of our three (set) losses decided by three points or less — and to have a swing to tie the fifth set at 14-14 miss by inches — that just tells you how close this match really was.”

Jessica Mate (St. Charles, Ill.) led the way for SMU, collecting 25 kills and hitting .350. Sarah Gardner (Rochester, Minn.) and Courtney Runge (St. James, Minn.) each chipped in 11 kills, while Brittany Cherwinka (Faribault, Minn.) dished out 40 assists.

“We're playing well right now, we're just not getting the results we would like,” said Lester. “We need to just keeping playing at the level we are playing at — if we do that, the results will going in our favor.”