NORTHFIELD, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University baseball team entered Tuesday's Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference doubleheader against Carleton determined to get back on the winning track.
 
And they succeeded — for the most part.
 
Saint Mary's, despite a 40-minute lightning delay — opened their conference twinbill with the Knights with a stellar, 4-0 victory in Game 1.
 
And Saint Mary's was on the verge of completing the MIAC sweep when Mother Nature threw the Cardinals another lightning curveball, forcing play to be halted in the top of the eighth inning with SMU leading 6-2. The teams will attempt to finish the halted contest sometime later this week.
 
Mired in a five-game losing streak — and having surrendered a combined 56 runs in those five contests — the Cardinals turned to the one-two pitching combination of James Green (East Bethel, Minn.) and Addison Hochevar (Lake Geneva, Wis.).
 
The two combined on a five-hit shutout — and the Cardinal offense broke open a one-run game with three runs in the top of the sixth inning en route to the Game 1 win.
 
Green, making his first start of the season, limited the Knights to just four hits over the first three innings, before giving way to Hochevar, who tossed four innings of one-hit relief to record his team-leading third win of the season.
 
Saint Mary's got all the offense it would need in the second inning. Andy Tepp (Stevens Point, Wis.) led off with a walk, advanced to second on a wild pitch, moved to third on a Connor Cornell (Plymouth, Minn.) fly out to right, and scored on Joey Costello's (Victoria, Minn.) two-out RBI single.
 
The Cardinals would be set down in order in each of the next three innings, before finding their groove in the sixth, scoring three times — one on an RBI single by Justin Weinberg (Eagan, Minn.), one on an RBI double by Will Matthews (Geneva, Ill.), and one on a Carleton wild pitch — to put the game out of reach.
 
The Cardinals scored their four runs on four hits — one each by Weinberg, Matthews, Costello, and Cameron Weber (Holmen, Wis.) — with two of those four hits coming in SMU's three-run sixth.
 
Carleton grabbed the early upper hand in the nightcap, scoring twice off Cardinal starter Luke Gilbertson (Windom, Minn.) in its first at-bat.
 
From there, however, Gilbertson was virtually untouchable, allowing just one hit, while striking out five, over the next five innings, before giving way to Jonathan Cieminski (Fountain City, Wis.), who set the Knights down in order in the seventh.
 
Saint Mary's would chip away at the Knights' lead, scoring solo runs in the second and fifth innings, before taking its first lead of the game, 3-2, on an RBI single by Jake Arndt (Coon Rapids, Minn.) in the sixth.
 
The Cardinals would score three times on four hits — including RBI singles by Matthews and Ben Coons (Kimberly, Wis.) — and were still batting with two outs and Coons on first when the game was halted.
 
Matthews and Coons each had two hits through 7 2/3 innings in Game 2, while Weinberg, Arndt, Brandon Hafemann (Milwaukee, Wis.), and Zach Drake (Westby, Wis.) had the other four hits.