By DONNY NADEAU
Saint Mary's Sports Information Director
 
ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University of Minnesota men's basketball team knew they were in for a battle when they took the court against Hamline Saturday afternoon.
 
What the Cardinals didn't realize, however, was that a slow start would make it an uphill battle—a very uphill battle.
 
Hamline raced out to an 11-0 lead and never looked back, as the Pipers dealt the Cardinals an 87-53 Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference setback at Hutton Arena.
 
The Cardinals struggled to find their shooting touch early—and Hamline took advantage. The Pipers scored the game's first 11 points, capped by a 3-pointer from Zach Smith two minutes into the opening half.
 
David Lindstrand (Lakeville, Minn.) got the Cardinals on the board with a pair of free throws  and back-to-back 3-pointers from Bradley Hill (Matteson, Ill.) cut the Cardinal deficit to seven, 15-8.
 
Hamline slowly pulled away, scoring 19 of the next 26 points to push its lead to 19, 34-15, with nine minutes remaining. A 10-4 Saint Mary's run whittled the Piper advantage to 38-25, but that was as close as Saint Mary's would get, heading into the locker room trailing HU, 44-27.
 
Saint Mary's knocked down the first field goal of the second half—a jumper by James Cullen (Western Springs, Ill.)—but Hamline would use a 13-4 half-opening burst to push its lead to 26, 57-31 at the 16:00 mark. The Pipers would use another big run, this time scoring 14 of 16 points in a six-minute span, to put the game out of reach.
 
Jakob Bailey (Cameron, Wis.) scored a team-high 14 points—the sixth straight game in which the Cardinal freshman has netted 10 or more points—while Sawyer Rosner (Phelps, Wis.) followed up his career-high 20-point effort against Carleton on Wednesday with 11 points against the Pipers.
 
Dylan See-Rockers scored a game-high 16 points and Lucas Berg added 14 for the Pipers, who got scoring 13 different players in improving to 4-7 in conference play and 8-8 overall.
 
The Cardinals (0-10 MIAC, 1-14 overall0 are back in Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference action on Monday, entertaining St. Thomas in a 7 p.m. showdown at the Saint Mary's Gym.