ST. PAUL, Minn. — For the last two weeks, nothing have some easy for the Saint Mary's University volleyball team.
The Cardinals had played three straight five-set matches — including back-to-back showdowns against nationally ranked Saint Benedict and Concordia — not to mention a hard-earned 3-1 victory over Northwestern on Tuesday in which SMU had to rally from a first-set loss to win their final nonconference contest.
Friday evening, however, the Cardinals made things look easy, cruising to a 3-0 Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference victory over Macalester.
The Cardinals surrendered the first point in the opening set against the Scots, but a 5-0 run gave SMU the offensive boost they needed. Macalester chipped away at the Cardinals' lead, finally pulling even at 18-18, only to have SMU use a 7-1 set-ending run to secure the win.
Macalester once again got out of the gate early in Set 2, as the Cardinals gave up the first three points in the second set, and trailed 10-6, before kicking their game into high gear, using a 5-1 run to pull even at 11-11 and then scoring 14 of the next 16 points for the 25-13 victory.
SMU took a page out of the Scots' playbook in the third set, getting out to an early 4-1 lead, but Macalester bounced back to take a 9-6 lead — a lead that was short-lived. The Cardinals rattled off 11 straight points and never looked back in rolling to the 25-12 win.
Sarah Gardner (Rochester, Minn.) led the way for the Cardinals — who hit .350 as a team — collecting a match-high 16 kills, while Brittany Cherwinka (Faribault, Minn.) dished out 37 assists and Tara Rasmussen (Kasson, Minn.) finished with a team-best eight digs.
With the win, the Cardinals improved to 5-3 and — thanks to losses by St. Catherine and Augsburg — jumped up to the fourth spot in the conference standings with three conference games remaining, beginning Saturday at Bethel.
“We talked right after the match and talked about how we've now accomplished half of what we need to do this weekend,” said Lester. “We need one more win (Saturday), then we can go into the final week of the season right in the middle of the conference race.”
