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WINONA, Minn.- After losing four of its previous six matches, the Saint Mary's University volleyball team wanted to use a weekend at home to get back on track.
Mission accomplished.
The Cardinals closed out a perfect 2-0 Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference weekend Saturday afternoon, bouncing back from a sub-par opening set to beat Bethel 3-1 (31-29, 25-13, 25-20, 25-22) at the SMU Gym.
SMU had opened the weekend with a convincing 3-0 victory over Macalester on Friday and picked up right where they left off on Saturday.
Thanks in large part to the play off
Sara Harstad (Chatfield, Minn.) and
Lindsey Legatt (Sartell, Minn.).
Harstad knocked home a career-high 14 kills, while Legatt chipped in 24 digs.
“Give a lot of the credit to those two,” SMU coach
Mike Lester said of his senior duo. “They really had huge performances today.”
After a tough loss in the first set, the Cardinals started off the second set on a 5-0 run and never looked back.
“We expected the whole match to be the way that first set went,” Lester said. “The key to this match was going to be passing and serving, and we did both extremely well today.
“We had 13 aces and they had five — and that was really the difference in the game.”
Sarah Gardner (Rochester, Minn.) had a match-high 19 kills, while
Jessica Mate (St. Charles, Ill.) added 11.
Brittany Cherwinka (Faribault, Minn.) — who collected her 3,000th career assist in Friday's 3-0 win over Macalester — tacked on 43 more assists against the Royals. Fueled by Legatt's 24 digs — the most by a Cardinal in a four-set match this season — the Cardinals finished with 75 digs, while hitting .206 as a team.
SMU, which improved to 6-3 in the MIAC and 20-9 overall, closes out its regular season with a pair of conference matches next week. The Cardinals travel to St. Catherine on Wednesday, before returning home for their regular-season finale against Gustavus on Saturday.