MOORHEAD, Minn. — After being held the just 17 points in each of its three sets in Friday's 3-0 loss at Saint Benedict, the Saint Mary's University volleyball team came out swinging from the opening serve in Saturday's conference showdown at Concordia.
 
Saint Mary's recorded nearly as many points in the first two sets against the Cobbers (47) as they had in all three sets against the Bennies (51).
 
That high-scoring offense took a mid-match siesta, however, as Saint Mary's was held to 16 and 17 points in the third and fourth sets in falling to the Cobbers 3-1 at CC's Memorial Auditorium.
 
After dropping the opening set in each of its previous three matches, the Cardinals grabbed the early 1-0 lead over the Cobbers with a 25-23 Set 1 victory. Concordia turned the tables in the second set, evening the match at 1-1 with a 25-22 victory.
 
And then came the Cardinal power outage, as CC cruised to a 25-16 win in the third set, before icing the four-set victory with a 25-17 triumph.
 
Ciarra McNally (Lewiston, Minn.) collected a team-leading 10 kills, one more than Braidyn Ruetten (Holmen, Wis.) and two in front of Rachel Szepieniec (Eau Claire, Wis.). Mandy Schmidt (Mitchell, S.D.) and Larkin Clem (Elk River, Minn.) dished out 20 and 17 assists, respectively, while DeJaye Baab (Wabasha, Minn.) and Hannah Skroch (Savage, Minn.) were the team's dig leaders with 16 and 11.
 
The Cardinals (3-4 MIAC, 7-16 overall) are now off until next weekend, when they host Macalester and Bethel in a pair of MIAC contests. SMU and Macalester will square off at the Saint Mary's Gym on Friday, before doing battle with Bethel the following evening. Both matches are slated for 7 p.m.