Hamline Match Summary

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Saint Mary's University men's tennis coach Jeff Halberg has said it many times during his 10-year career as the Cardinals' head coach — "a bounce here or there is the difference between a win and a loss."

And Thursday afternoon, the bounces — and the wins — went the Cardinals' way.

SMU picked up wins in all three doubles matches, including a come-from-behind 8-6 win by Andy Weigman (Maple Plain, Minn.) and Justin Loeffler (Winona, Minn.) — a match in which the Cardinal duo trailed 6-1 — and tacked on three singles wins en route to a 6-3 Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference victory over Hamline.

"It was a good team win," said Halberg, whose team closed out its regular season with a conference match against St. Olaf Saturday. "The ball bounced our way today — we got a great come-from-behind win at No. 2 doubles and Walter Mannino (Chicago, Ill.) hung on for a hard-fought three-set win at No. 1 singles. Those two matches got the other way, and it's a 5-4 loss."

Mannino won the first set of his match at No. 1 singles, 6-4,  but the Pipers' Dan Vogel returned the favor in the second set, with Mannino outlasting the Pipers' top singles player in the third set, 10-7. #Pawel Szczepkowski (Opolskie, Poland) and Steve Clements (La Crosse, Wis.) had a little easier time at No. 2 and No. 3 singles, winning 6-4, 6-2 and 6-2, 6-4, respectively.

"It was nice to see the guys all pull together and come away with the win," said Halberg. "Because of the poor spring weather, It had been so long since we  played a match outside — it took us a little while to adjust. But once we did, we were pretty solid."