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Game 1 Box Score / Game 2 Box Score

ST. PETER, Minn. — It was a normal, seven-inning collegiate baseball game — but it took 10 days to complete.

And for Nick Whaley and the Saint Mary's University baseball team, it was worth the wait.

The Cardinals, 10-5 losers to Gustavus in the first game of their Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference doubleheader on April 21, were well on their way to a Game 2 victory — scoring seven runs in the first four innings to take a 7-1 advantage into the bottom of the fourth — before Mother Nature enough was enough, forcing the suspension of the game.

Until Thursday — 10 days after the game's first pitch.

And while the Cardinals' offense couldn't pick up where it left off, the seven runs they scored on April 21 were more than enough, as SMU held off the Gusties 7-3 to earn a split in the conference twinbill.

"It's a long drive for three innings of baseball, but it was worth it," said SMU coach Nick Whaley, whose team was coming off a pair of disappointing 4-1, 7-4 losses to Bethel on Wednesday. "It was too bad the game had to be suspended before — we were playing so well at the time, I was a little worried about how we would react to having to pick up right in the middle of a game.

"But the guys responded well — it was a good win against a very good baseball team."

After trading single runs in the first inning — the Cardinals' coming on an RBI single by Brady Knudsen (Racine, Wis.) — SMU broke the game open in the second, scoring five times to take a 6-1 advantage. Kyle Ryan (St. Paul, Minn.) delivered a two-run single in the inning, while Knudsen and David Krieger (Mendota Heights, Minn.) also drove in runs in the inning.

SMU pushed that lead to 7-1 on an RBI single by Zach Olberding (Maplewood, Minn.) in the third, before rain put the Cardinals'  victory on hold.

When play resumed, the Gusties collected a hit in the fourth and two more in the fifth, but failed to score, before plating a pair of runs  in the bottom of the sixth to complete the scoring.

"This was a good win," said Whaley, whose team closes out its season Saturday, playing host to Concordia in a 4 p.m. conference doubleheader at Winona State's Loughery Field. "Hopefully we can pick up right where we left off (on Saturday) and close out the season with another couple of wins."