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MINNETONKA, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University of Minnesota baseball team entered the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Tournament as arguably the hottest team in the four-team tournament — riding a six-game winning streak into their tournament-opening game against Bethel Friday evening.
 
Two of those wins came against the Royals, as the Cardinals — needing to win three of their last four games to earn a third straight trip to the conference's post-season dance — used rallied late in both games of the teams' doubleheader to sweep Bethel 3-1 and 6-4 last Sunday.
 
The Cardinals were in dire need of some more of those late-game heroics on Friday, staring at a five-run, 11-6 deficit heading into their final two at-bats.
 
Unlike those regular-season victories, however, Saint Mary's late-game rally came up three runs short, as the Cardinals — leaving the tying run at the plate — fell to Bethel 11-8.
 
With the loss, the Cardinals (17-22 overall) will now face Saint John's — 7-3 losers to top-seeded and regular-season champion St. Thomas in Friday's opening game — in an 11 a.m. elimination game Saturday at Veteran's Stadium. The winner of the SMU-SJU game will then face the loser of Saturday's 2 p.m. Bethel-St. Thomas contest at 6 p.m.
 
The Royals wasted no time getting on the board, as Bethel got a single run off SMU starter Ben Johnson (Brooklyn Park, Minn.) on a RBI double by Mike Schultz.
 
After being held off the scoreboard in their first two at-bats, the Cardinals flexed their offensive muscle in the third.
 
A David Barry (Apple Valley, Minn.) single and walk to Willie Doll (Amherst, Wis.) put runners on first and second with one out in the third for the Cardinals. Paul LaNasa (Mahtomedi, Minn.) came through with an RBI single to score Barry and tie the game, 1-1.
 
And the Cardinals — thanks in part to a pair of wild pitches and a BU error — were just getting warmed up.
 
Doll scored on a wild pitch to give Saint Mary's its first lead of the game, 2-1, and Ben Buerkle's second hit of the evening — a laser to right field — drove in LaNasa for Cardinals' third run of the inning. Buerkle stole second and scored on a throwing error by the Bethel shortstop to push the Saint Mary's advantage to 4-1 before Royals' pitcher Matt Herringshaw got Tyler Lursen (Maple Grove, Minn.) to pop out to second to end the inning.
 
Bethel returned the favor in the bottom of the third, as two Cardinal errors and a Johnson wild pitch plated three of runs and pulled the Royals even, 4-4.
 
The Royals threatened in the fourth, getting back-to-back one-out singles, but a slick Taylor Thelemann (Bloomington, Minn.)-to-Barry-to-Kevin Gannon (Roselle, Ill.) double-play ended the threat and kept the Cardinals and Royals knotted at 4-4.
 
Bethel threatened again in the fifth — and this time the Royals cashed in, as Jared Watts laced a two-out single to grab a 5-4 lead and chase Johnson. The Royals' Nik Anderson welcomed reliever Ben Dobosenski (Westmont, Ill.) with an RBI double, but Saint Mary's escaped any other damage, as Watt was gunned down at the plate trying to score on the play.
 
The Cardinals snapped out of a three-inning scoreless funk in the seventh, scoring twice to tie the game for a second time. Barry led off the inning with a walk and moved to second on a single by Doll. LaNasa sacrificed the runners to second and third, and a walk to Gannon loaded the bases for Buerkle, who promptly delivered his third hit in four at-bats — a run-scoring single to left — to score Barry, while a Schlemmer RBI ground out knotted the game at 6-6.
 
Unfortunately, the deadlock did not last long.
 
Grant Anderson welcomed relief pitcher Jake Merkle (Mahtomedi, Minn.) with a one-out triple to deep left in the bottom of the seventh, and scored on a sacrifice fly to give the Royals a 7-6 lead. Watts then worked a two-out walk, and — after back-to-back walks moved him to third — scored on an Anderson single to center, before the Royals tacked on three more unearned runs to take a commanding five-run, 11-6 lead into the eighth.
 
Schlemmer belted his first home run of the season — a two-run shot to deep left-center in the ninth — to cut the BU lead to 11-8, but that was as close as the Cardinals would get.
 
Buerkle went 4-for-5 with a pair of RBIs to lead the Cardinals' nine-hit offensive attack, while Barry was 2-for-3 with a pair of runs scored, and Schlemmer, LaNasa, Lursen, Doll and Kevin Miley (St. Paul, Minn.) accounted for Saint Mary's other four hits.