Match Summary vs. Gustavus / Match Summary vs. UW-Superior
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WINONA, Minn. — For the Saint Mary's University volleyball team, there was an easy way, and a hard way, for them to qualify for the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference playoffs.

The easy way: Beat Gustavus Saturday in the teams' regular-season conference finale.

The hard way: Lose to the Gusties and hope Augsburg loses to St. Thomas, and Carleton beats St. Olaf.

Nobody said the Cardinals' first trip to the MIAC post-season since 2004 was going to be easy.

Speaking of easy, the Gusties made things look that way in the opening set, rolling to a 25-14 win, before battling to 25-22 and 25-17 wins to complete the 3-0 MIAC win.

Fortunately for hte Cardinals, the loss to Gustavus didn't come back to haunt them, as SMU's new best friend — Carleton — hand-delivered a post-season invitation with a 3-2 victory over St. Olaf later in the dya. That Carleton win, along with Augsburg's loss to St. Thomas, put SMU into the No. 6 spot — and earned the Cardinals a trip to St. Joseph, Minn., Tuesday for a first-round tournament match against Saint Benedict.

"It's great to get back into that top six," said SMU coach Mike Lester. "It was a little nerve-wracking — having to wait and see how Carleton and Augsburg did — but it certainly was worth the wait.

“I told the team after the match that, the reason Gustavus is 9-2 in the conference, 25-3 overall and ranked No. 19 in the nation is not because on any one play they are better than us, it's just that they are super, super consistent,” added Lester, whose team did bounce back to beat UW-Superior 3-0 (25-23, 25-18, 26-24) in their second match of the afternoon. “We did not play very well in the first set, but if you look at sets two and three, we were every bit as good as they were. The difference was, they were good on a consistent basis, while we had our ups and downs.”

Courtney Runge (St. James, Minn.) led the way for SMU, collecting 12 kills and 13 digs, while Theresa Perrini (Fairway, Kan.) — who, along with Carolyn Kiefer (New London, Wis.), was playing in the final MIAC match of her career — posted 22 digs. Brittany Cherwinka (Faribault, Minn.) dished out 31 assists for the Cardinals, while Nicki Ainsworth finished with 14 kills, nine digs and four blocks in the winning effort for the Gusties.

Amy Kujak (River Falls, Wis.) and Jessica Mate (St. Charles, Ill.) paced the Cardinals against UW-Superior, posting 12 and 11 kills, respectively. Mate also finished with 13 digs, while Runge recorded a team-best 14 digs and Cherwinka tallied 37 assists. Brittany Jarvis had 11 kills, four digs and two blocks in the losing effort for UW-Superior.