COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University of Minnesota baseball team made it look easy as 1-2-3 in its opening game of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Playoffs Thursday evening against St. Thomas.
 
One: Cale Pieczynski (Plover, Minn.).
 
Two: Steph Scatassa (Westchester, Ill.).
 
Three: A pair of three-run innings.
 
Pieczynski went 3-for-5 with a single, double, home run, three RBIs and a pair of runs scored, while Scatassa was near-perfect, tossing a complete-game, four-hit shutout.
 
Add that to three-run innings in the fourth and seventh innings, and the end result was a convincing 7-0 Cardinal win over the conference's regular-season champion and No. 1-seeded Tommies at Saint John's Becker Park.
 
"This was a great win and it's awesome, but that's yesterday's box score," said Saint Mary's coach Nick Winecke, whose Cardinals will face Saint John's—6-5 winners over Hamline in Thursday's other opening-round game. "We had a good week of preparation and have been playing some really good ball.
 
"We prepared well, and our success tonight starts on the mound—Steph turned in an awesome pitching performance," said Winecke of his senior, who posted his second collegiate four-hit shutout against the Tommies. "Offensively we were dialed in and had a great game plan.
 
"We 've been on a mission all season, and that's to make sure to take it one pitch at a time—if we do that, we'll be in a good situation at the end of tomorrow."
 
If the Cardinals were intimidated facing St. Thomas ace Eric Veglahn—who boasted a perfect 4-0 record and 0.81 ERA in four post-season starts in his collegiate career—they certainly didn't show it, getting to the Tommie left-hander in their very first at-bat.
 
After Willie Doll (Amherst, Wis.) opened the game with a fly out to center, Pieczynski clubbed a Veglahn offering over the fence in left to give the Cardinals a quick 1-0 lead.
 
A lead the Cardinals would never relinquish.
 
"It was a great team win," said Pieczynski, one of 15 seniors on this year's team. "Our game plan was to be aggressive (at the plate)—we knew (UST pitcher Eric) Veglahn would be around the plate—and we played great defense and got a heck of a pitching performance from Steph.
 
"It was our best all-around game of the season, and it could not have happened at a better time."
 
The Cardinals' one-run lead ballooned to 4-0 in the fourth, as the Cardinals scored three runs on two hits—both for extra bases.
 
Ben Buerkle (Roseville, Minn.) opened the inning with a double to right and moved to third when Veglahn failed to throw him out on Tyler Lursen's (Maple Grove, Minn.) sacrifice bunt. A Bob Kinne (St. Paul, Minn.) sacrifice fly to left scored Buerkle with the first run, and a Jake Mencacci (Wheaton, Ill.) triple—his first of the season—plated Lursen with the Cardinals' second run of the inning. Mencacci was then credited with a steal of home when UST catcher Keller Knoll could not handle a pitch on an attempted suicide squeeze.
 
Scatassa, meanwhile, did what he's done all year for the Cardinals—silence the opponent's bats, sailing through the first four innings. The senior right-hander set UST down in order in each of the first three innings, before giving up a walk and a two-out single by Dan Ziemann.
 
St. Thomas threatened in the sixth, loading the bases in the sixth on a pair of singles and a walk, but Scatassa got Brady Johnson to fly out to right to end the inning—and preserve the four-run Cardinal advantage.
 
The Cardinals put together their second three-run inning of the evening in the seventh—thanks to a two-run single by Pieczynski and  a run-scoring double by Lursen.
 
Jacob Frost (Moline, Ill.) kicked off the Saint Mary's seventh with a single and was sacrificed to second by Joe Seegers (Oconomowoc, Wis.). Doll followed with a double, moving Frost to third. Pieczynski laced single up the middle to score both Frost and Doll, and Lursen delivered a run-scoring single to plate Pieczynski and give Saint Mary's a 7-0 cushion.
 
And seven runs was more than enough for Scatassa, who retired the first nine batters he faced and the last 10—setting the Tommies down in order in each of the last three innings en route to his team-leading seventh win of the season.
 
Pieczynski paced the Cardinals' 13-hit attack with his 3-for-5 effort, while Doll, Lursen and Frost all chipped in two  hits. Scatassa, meanwhile, posted his second complete-game shutout, limiting UST to just four hits, while walking two and striking out six.