After suffering a heartbreaking, 5-3 loss in their opening game of their Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference doubleheader against league-leading St. Thomas — letting a 2-1, fifth-inning lead slip through their fingers — the Cardinals proved they could learn from their mistakes in the nightcap, getting the early lead and never looking back en route to a 3-0 victory.

“I was extremely pleased with the way we played today,” said SMU coach Jen Miller, whose team handed St. Thomas its first conference loss in eight games with the Game 2 win — while snapping a 20-game losing streak vs. the Tommies that dated back to a 1-0 SMU win in 2001 (when head coach Jen Miller was the Cardinals' starting catcher). “We hit the ball much better — probably the best we've swung the bats all year — and that was huge.

“We really needed a performance like this.”

With one swing of the bat, the Cardinals went from the thrill of victory to the agony of defeat in the opener, as Alison Wright delivered a three-run home run in the bottom of the fifth inning, erasing a 2-1 SMU lead and lifting the Tommies to the 5-3 Game 1 victory.

The Cardinals threatened to break open the first game in the fourth, tying the game 1-1 on a Nicole Olson (New Brighton, Minn.) RBI, but they also left the bases loaded in settling for the 1-1 deadlock.

SMU took its first lead in the fifth, getting an RBI double from Kellie Simons (Richfield, Minn.), but the Tommies made SMU pay for a two-out throwing error as Wright laced a Mallory Betzold (Farmington, Minn.) offering over the center-field fence to give the Tommies the lead for good.

Simons finished 2-for-4 and drove in two of SMU's three runs in the opener.

The Cardinals jumped out early in the nightcap, scoring once in the first inning as Erin Stenseth (Eau Claire, Wis.) led off with a double and scored on a bases-loaded single by Paige Carter (Rosemount, Minn.). SMU then padded its lead to 3-0 in the fifth, as Stenseth again doubled and Katy Gannon (Roselle, Ill.) delivered a two-run home run.

And this time around, Betzold — who threw all 13 innings on the mound for the Cardinals — made the lead stand up, as the junior hurler shut down the Tommies' high-powered offense, limiting UST to just five hits.

Stenseth, Gannon and Simons all had three hits to fuel SMU's 12-hit Game 2 attack, while Gannon also drove in two runs with her second home run of the season.

“It feels good,” Miller said of the Game 2 win. “There's no question we had the opportunity to beat them twice, but for us to bounce back after a heartbreaking loss like that first game, that was huge.”

The Cardinals don't have much time to savor their win over the Tommies, as they return to action on Wednesday, playing host to Bethel in a 4 p.m. conference doubleheader at SMU Field.