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WINONA, Minn. — With nationally ranked St. Olaf in town on Wednesday, the Saint Mary's University volleyball team had a golden opportunity to get a much-needed Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference victory.

The Cardinals, however, let that opportunity slip through their fingers, as the15th-ranked Oles walked into the SMU Gym and left with a 3-1 (25-17, 19-25, 25-19, 25-16) victory.

The loss was a key blow to the Cardinals' hopes of a regular-season conference title. St. Olaf (19-4, 6-1 MIAC) entered the match as one of three teams tied for first, while the Cardinals (16-6, 4-3) were one of two teams one game back.

“As far as a conference title goes, this really hurts,” SMU coach Mike Lester said. “We had a good game plan coming in and, when we executed it, we scored a bunch of points — we just weren't consistent enough.”

The Cardinals started slow in the first set, but seemed to find the momentum midway through the second.
SMU trailed 15-9 before going on a 16-4 run to win the set and tie the match at 1-1.

That momentum was short-lived, however, as the Oles took the next two sets without much resistance from the Cardinals.

“During that run (in the second set), we were aggressive, we were hitting, we were doing everything we needed to do,” said SMU senior Sara Harstad. “We made the big plays during that span, but couldn't finish them in the other sets.”

Jessica Mate (St. Charles, Ill.) led a trio of Cardinals in double figures in kills, finishing with 15, while Sarah Gardner (Rochester, Minn.) added 11 and Amy Kujak (River Falls, Wis.) finished with 10. Brittany Cherwinka (Faribault, Minn.) recorded 36 assists and Lindsey Legatt (Sartell, Minn.) tallied a team-high 12 digs.

The road won't get any easier for the Cardinals, as they travel to Naperville, Ill. for the North Central Invitational, a tournament that has SMU squaring off against both No. 9-ranked Calvin College and No. 12-ranked Hope College.

“It's going to be nice to get out of the conference a little bit and measure yourself against some of the better teams in the nation,” Lester said. “We played much better today than we did over (last) weekend, and we're going to need to continue to improve going forward.”