ST. PAUL, Minn. — Runs were at a premium for the Saint Mary's University of Minnesota baseball team Thursday afternoon in its Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference doubleheader against St. Thomas.
 
And when you are facing the Tommies' aces Ryan Zimmerman and Henry DeCaster, that was not good news for Cardinal coach Nick Winecke.
 
Saint Mary's managed just four runs on 13 hits over 16 innings against the Tommie duo, as St. Thomas dealt the Cardinals 5-3 and 8-1 conference setbacks at Koch Diamond.
 
In the opener, it was the Tommies who got on the board first in what proved to be an eventful second inning.
 
Saint Mary's threatened in its half of the second, putting runners on second and third with two outs, but the Cardinals came up empty as Zimmerman induced an inning-ending strikeout. The Tommies made the most of their second-inning at-bat, getting a one-out single from Charlie Callahan, followed by a two-run bomb over the left-field fence by Josh Thorp to grab a 2-0 advantage.
 
The Cardinals cut the Tommie lead in half in the third, as Joe Seegers (Oconomowoc, Wis.) was hit by a pitch to open the inning, moved to third on Will Matthews' (Geneva, Ill.) single, and scored on a ground-rule double by Ben Buerkle (Roseville, Minn.).
 
St. Thomas regained its two-run advantage in the bottom of the third on an RBI single by Sam Schneider, only to have Saint Mary's plate a pair of runs—on back-to-back run-scoring singles by Bob Kinne (St. Paul, Minn.) and Zach Slowiak (Chippewa Falls, Wis.)—to knot the game at 3-3 in the top of the fifth.
 
The game did not remain deadlocked long, however, as St. Thomas scored twice in the bottom of the fifth—and Zimmerman allowed just a seventh-inning walk in the final two innings to seal the Tommie victory.
 
 Kinne finished 2-for-4 to lead the Cardinals' six-hit Game 1 offensive attack, with Matthews, Slowiak, Ben Buerkle (Roseville, Minn.), and Chris Bartosz (Woodridge, Ill.) each adding one hit.
 
St. Thomas broke a scoreless tie with a pair of runs in the third and another in the fourth to grab a 3-0 lead in the nightcap. Saint Mary's scored its lone run in the fifth—on Jake Barry's (Tinley Park, Ill.) team-leading seventh home run of the season—but the Tommies answered with two runs in the sixth and three more in the eighth to seal the win.
 
Matthews and Joey Costello (Victoria, Minn.) both went 2-for-3 to highlight Saint Mary's seven-hit attack, with Seegers, Barry, and Bartosz accounting for the other four hits.
 
The Cardinals (1-5 MIAC, 11-14 overall) are back in action on Saturday, hosting St. Olaf in a 1 p.m. conference doubleheader at Max Molock Field.