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WINONA, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University volleyball team was in a streak-snapping mood Saturday afternoon.

Which was good news for coach Mike Lester — and bad news for visiting Hamline.

The Cardinals put an end to their four-match losing streak — while snapping the Pipers' four-match winning streak — with a dominating 3-0 Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference victory at the SMU Gym.

“We played extremely well today,” said Lester, whose team was coming off a 3-0 loss to seventh-ranked St. Thomas on Friday. “I thought we played pretty well (against St. Thomas), but today we were even better.

“This was exactly what we needed,” Lester added. “The ladies put (Friday night's) match behind them and really focused on being at the top of their game from start to finish today — and that's exactly what they did.”

It was all business for the Cardinals right from the opening serve, as SMU jumped out to a 5-1 lead in the first set and never looked back, winning 25-18.

And that was just a sign of things to come, as SMU broke an 11-11 deadlock with a 14-3 set-ending run to win Set 2 25-14, then scored nine of the first 13 points in the third set and cruised to a 25-16 sweep-clinching victory.

Mary Nordick (Plymouth, Minn.), who had a team-best 10 kills against St. Thomas on Friday, was again the team-leader on Saturday, hitting .321 en route to her match-high 12 kills. Lexi Assimos (Northbrook, Ill.) dished out 33 assists, while adding seven kills and hitting .421, with Lex Krogstad (Chicago, Ill.) recording 17 kills and two service aces.

Sam Greeney-Hamlin tallied nine kills and Becka Mozes posted 18 assists in the losing effort for Hamline.

The Cardinals (4-5 MIAC, 13-13 overall) are back in action on Wednesday, hosting Carleton in a 7 p.m. MIAC match at the SMU Gym, before closing out the regular-season on Saturday with a 3 p.m. home match against Gustavus.