WINONA, Minn. — Saint Mary's University women's tennis coach Jeff Halberg knew it was going to take a complete effort for the Cardinals to take down Saint Benedict in the teams' Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference matchup Saturday afternoon.
 
And Halberg certainly got the effort.
 
Unfortunately, the Cardinals found themselves in an early 3-0 hole and no matter how hard they tried, they could not find a way to recover in falling to the Bennies 8-1 at the Winona Tennis Center.
 
"Saint Benedict started so fast on us — we just never fully recovered," said Halberg. "We fought so hard to climb out of that early hole — as the scores indicate — but credit goes to Saint Benedict, they out-fought us today."
 
Saint Benedict grabbed the early momentum, securing wins in all three doubles matches to take a 3-0 lead into the singles matches.
 
And what a set of singles matches it was.
 
Four of the six singles contests were stretched to a third set, and one of the other two needed a first-set tiebreaker.
 
Natalie Peterson (St. Cloud, Minn.) picked up SMU's singles win, rallying from a set down to win 1-6, 6-1, 10-2 at No. 1. Kennedy Morgan (Green Bay, Wis.), Maggie Frye (), and Emily Henderson (Jordan, Minn.) all came up short in three-set decisions, while Zoie Becker (St. James, Minn.) and Kailee Johnson (Rochester, Minn.) both dropped first-set tiebreakers in their straight-set losses.
 
The Cardinals (0-2 MIAC, 4-2 overall) are right back in action Saturday evening, squaring off against Bethany Lutheran in a 6 p.m. nonconference match at the Winona Tennis Center.
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