WINONA, Minn. — The last time the Saint Mary's University and Saint Benedict volleyball teams squared off was in the 2008 Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Tournament, where the Cardinals were the No. 6 seed and the nationally ranked Blazers were the tournament's No. 3 seed.
The Cardinals savored the role of giant killers, as SMU outlasted the Blazers on their home floor, winning in five sets, 3-2.
Thursday evening, SMU was again found itself in the role of David against the Goliath Blazers, who came to the SMU Gym riding a 13-game winning streak — including a perfect 4-0 mark in conference play — and the nation's No. 16 ranking.
And for a second straight time, the Cardinals delivered a knockout blow, once again outlasting the Blazers in five sets — 20-25, 25-23, 25-18, 16-25, 17-15.
“That was a great collegiate volleyball match, and a great win for us,” said SMU coach Mike Lester, whose team improved to 3-2 in the MIAC and 17-5 overall with its seventh straight win. “Every match in the conference is a big match, but we knew coming into this week that we needed to be at the top of our game — and tonight, we certainly were.”
The Blazers took control early, using a 6-1 run to break a 19-19 tie and take the first set 25-20. Unfazed, SMU was in control from start to finish in both the second and third sets, as the Cardinals raced out to a 13-7 lead in Set 2 and used a 5-0 run to break an early 4-4 tie and never trail again in Set 3.
Unfortunately, the Cardinals could not close things out in four sets, as CSB scored the set's first five points and led by as many as 10 on three separate occasions in forcing a fifth and deciding set.
Which would go right down to the wire — and then some.
Neither team led by more than three points the entire set, with the lead changing hands five times. SMU grabbed leads of 13-12 — on an ace by Brittany Cherwinka (Faribault, Minn.) — and 14-13 — on a kill by Amy Kujak (River Falls, Wis.), but CSB retaliated with back-to-back points to take a 15-14 advantage. Jessica Mate (St. Charles, Ill.) hammered down two big kills to give SMU a 16-15 advantage, and Sarah Gardner (Rochester, Minn.) followed with her 17th — and most important — kill of the night to seal the win.
Mate equaled her season high with a team-best 19 kills vs the Blazers — while also hitting a season-best .417 — with Gardner and Kujak chipping in 17 and 16 kills, respectively. Cherwinka recorded her first-ever 60-assist night, finishing with 61 assists, while Tara Rasmussen (Kasson, Minn.) recorded 22 digs and Gardner tallied five service aces.
“You have to give this team credit, they just kept battling and battling,” said Lester, whose team will face its second straight nationally ranked team on Saturday, when the Cardinals host Concordia in a 3 p.m. match at the SMU Gym. “We struggled a bit in that fourth set, but near the end (of the set) we started to pick things up, and we just kept that momentum going in the fifth set.
“We talked a little bit (about last year's win over the Blazers in the MIAC Tournament), mainly because they returned their entire lineup from a team that went to the NCAA Elite Eight last season,” said Lester. “We knew what we needed to do, and they went out and did it.
“It was a great win, and a great way to start a really big stretch in our conference schedule.”
