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WINONA, Minn. - With both teams jockeying for post-season positioning, Saint Mary's University volleyball coach Mike Lester expected Wednesday's Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference match against Hamline to be a knock-down, drag-out fight to the finish.

And the Cardinals and Pipers didn't disappoint.

Fortunately for Lester, it was his Cardinals that were doing the knocking down and dragging out, as SMU rebounded from a sub-par second set to take Sets 3 and 4 en route to a 3-1 conference victory.

"This match was exactly what I expected - a battle from start to finish," said Lester, whose team moved into a three-way tie with Hamline and Gustavus for the fifth spot in the race for one of the conference's six post-season tournament bids. "We knew this was an important match - and the ladies came through.

"Anytime you have to pretty evenly matched teams, it's going to come down to a defensive play here or a serve there, and we were able to get those big plays when we needed them."

The Cardinals rallied late, breaking an 18-18 deadlock with a set-ending 7-2 run to grab the opening set, but it was all Hamline in Set 2, as the Pipers cruised to a 25-12 victory.

SMU rebounded in the pivotal third set, outlasting HU 27-25 in a match the Pipers led 23-22, while the Cardinals held late leads of 24-23, 25-24 and 26-25, before a Lexi Assimos (Northbrook, Ill.) kill seal the SMU victory.

The Cardinals then closed out the match - their fifth straight win - with a convincing 25-15 victory in the fourth set.

"I thought the fourth set was by far our best set of the match," said Lester. "We scratched and clawed through those first three sets, but really put everything together in that fourth set."

Alex Peterson (Harmony, Minn.) picked up a team-leading 12 kills, while Molly Grove (Zumbrota, Minn.) chipped in 11 and hit a team-best .360. Assimos, who tallied eight kills, dished out 41 assists, and Jordan Wolfe (Wabasha, Minn.) led four SMU players in double figures with 16 digs - one more than Brooke Schilling (Altura, Minn.) and Morgan Thomas (Palos Park, Ill.), and three better than Lex Krogstad (Chicago, Ill.).

Caitlyn Gottwald recorded a match-high 14 kills and Lynsey Reimer finished with a school-record 36 digs in the losing effort for Hamline.

The Cardinals (17-5 overall) are back in action this weekend, traveling to Naperville, Ill., to take part in the North Central Tiffany Robinson Memorial Tournament. SMU opens with North Park and UW-Oshkosh on Friday, before squaring off against Wheaton (Ill.) and host North Central on Saturday.