WINONA, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University of Minnesota baseball team entered Saturday's Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference doubleheader against regular-season champion Bethel clinging to slim hopes of a fourth straight trip to the conference playoffs.
 
A 7-5 Game 1 loss to the Royals, however, put those slim hopes on life support.
 
And Bethel's back-to-back three-run innings in the seventh and eighth erased a 4-2 Saint Mary's lead and the Royals officially knocked the Cardinals out of playoff contention with an 8-5 victory in the nightcap at Winona State's Loughrey Field.
 
The Cardinals got out to a quick start in the opener, loading the bases with no one out, before getting a two-out, two-run single from Tyler Lursen (Oakdale, Minn.) to grab a 1-0 first-inning advantage.
 
The lead did not make it a half inning, however, as Bethel got to Saint Mary's starter Steph Scatassa (Westchester, Ill.) for three runs in the top of the second to take a brief, 3-2 lead.
 
Saint Mary's responded with its second straight two-run inning the bottom of the second, once again getting a clutch two-out hit—this one a two-run double by Ben Buerkle (Roseville, Minn.)—to retake the lead, 4-3.
 
Bethel grabbed the lead for good with one run in the third and two more in the fifth. The Cardinals clawed to within one, 6-5, on a Jon Schlemmer (De Pere, Wis.) RBI groundout, but the Royals ice the win with a Mike Schultz lead-off home run in the seventh.
 
Buerkle accounted for three of the Cardinals' seven Game 1 hits, going 3-for-3 with a pair of RBIs, while Will Doll (Amherst, Wis.), Schlemmer, Lursen, and Cale Pieczynski (Plover, Wis.) each had one hit.
 
With the Game 1 loss, the Cardinals' backs were to the wall in the nightcap­—nothing short of a win would keep Saint Mary's in the playoff hunt.
 
After three scoreless innings, Bethel finally broke the ice in the fourth, scoring twice off Saint Mary's starter Ben Johnson (Brooklyn Park, Minn.), but the Cardinals equaled that two-run feat in the bottom of the fourth—scoring once on a Schlemmer RBI single and another on a Bethel error—to knot the game at 2-2.
 
The Cardinals added their second two-run inning in the sixth on a clutch, two-out, two-run double by Kevin Miley (St. Paul, Minn.) to grab a 4-2 advantage.
 
That, however, would be the last time the Cardinals would lead, as Bethel put together back-to-back three-run innings in the seventh and eighth to grab an 8-4 lead heading into the bottom of the ninth.
 
Jake Barry (Tinley Park, Ill.) got the Cardinals within three, 8-5—launching a lead-off solo home run in Saint Mary's final at-bat—but that was as close as they would get.
 
Miley went 2-for-3 with a pair of RBIs, while Schlemmer also had two hits to pace the Cardinals' eight-hit Game 2 attack. Doll, David Barry (Apple Valley, Minn.), Buerkle and Jake Barry accounted for the Cardinals' other four hits.
 
With the losses, the Cardinals close out their conference season at 9-9, while slipping to 24-12 overall.