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ST. PAUL, Minn. — St. Thomas entered Tuesday's Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference doubleheader against the Saint Mary's University baseball team with a rather impressive pedigree.
 
The Tommies, who have won or shared conference's regular-season title in each of the last 11 seasons, squared off against the Cardinals owning a No. 14 ranking in the latest D3baseball.com Top 25, were riding an eight-game winning streak, and were averaging seven runs, 10 hits and four walks a game this season.
 
SMU opening-game starter Ben Johnson (Brooklyn Park, Minn.) and reliever Pat Regan (Mound, Minn.), however,  were unimpressed, as the Cardinal duo limited the high-powered Tommies to just four runs on eight hits in Game 1 of their MIAC twinbill at Koch Diamond.
 
Unfortunately, four runs proved to be one too many, as the Tommies held off a seventh-inning SMU rally to beat the Cardinals 4-3 in Game 1.
 
And the Tommies were just getting warmed up.
 
UST erupted for four runs in the top of the first inning in the nightcap and never relinquished the lead, completing the sweep with a 13-5 victory.
 
St. Thomas wasted little time getting on the board in Game 1, scoring twice in the top of the first inning, but the lead didn't last long, as the Cardinals answered with two runs of their own in the bottom of the second on a two-run single by Willie Doll (Amherst, Wis.).
 
The Tommies would regain their two-run lead on a pair of RBI groundouts — the first in the third and the second in the fifth — and maintain that advantage until the bottom of the seventh, when Doll drew a one-out walk, moved to second on a Paul LaNasa (Mahtomedi, Minn.) groundout and scored on Kevin Gannon's (Roselle, Ill.) single to center.
 
UST reliever Greg Clute, however, induced Ben Buerkle (Roseville, Minn.) to ground out third to end the threat — and the game.
 
Jon Schlemmer (De Pere, Wis.) went 2-for-3, while Doll, Gannon, Tommy Merkelis (Calumet City, Ill.) and Taylor Thelemann (Bloomington, Minn.) accounted for SMU's other hits.
 
As good as the Tommies were in the first inning in the opener, they were twice as good in the nightcap, as UST tagged SMU starter Jake Merkle (Mahtomedi, Minn.) for four runs in the top of the first to take a quick 4-0 advantage.
 
And, just like they did in the opener, the Cardinals answered.
 
Doll opened the bottom of first with double, scored on a throwing error on a St. Thomas throwing error and Buerkle delivered his first collegiate home run — a two-run, inside-the-park shot to deep center — to cut the Tommie lead to 4-3.
 
UST made it 5-3 on an RBI sacrifice fly in the second and pushed that advantage to 8-3 with a three-run fourth. The Cardinals got one run back on a Doll's second double of the game — scoring David Barry (Apple Valley, Minn.), who walked — in the bottom of the fourth, but the Tommies put the game out of reach in the sixth, as Tim Kunziar delivered a three-run home run to put UST up 11-4.
 
SMU's Kevin Miley (St. Paul, Minn.) laced an RBI single in the seventh to make it 11-5, only to have the Tommies plate two runs of their own in the eighth to make it a 13-5 final.
 
Doll finished the nightcap 4-for-5 with a pair of doubles, while Buerkle was 2-for-4 with home run No. 1 and a pair of RBIs.
 
The Cardinals (3-4 MIAC, 7-16 overall) are right back on the field on Wednesday, as SMU hosts Carleton in a 2:30 p.m. Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference doubleheader at Max Molock Field.