ST. PAUL, Minn. — Saint Mary's University women's tennis coach Jeff Halberg knew his Cardinals were in for an uphill climb against Macalester Tuesday afternoon.
 
And, unfortunately, the Scots lived up to their billing.
 
Macalester swept through the three doubles matches and won five of the six singles contests in straight sets in dealing Saint Mary's an 8-1 Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference setback at the Macalester courts.
 
"We played solid tennis today, but Macalester was just too deep," Halberg said. "I knew heading in that (the Scots') depth was going to be tough for us. Give Macalester credit, they played a great match."
 
The Scots grabbed the early advantage with 8-4, 8-6, and 8-5 wins in the doubles portion of the conference match, before collecting straight-set victories in the first five singles contests. Peyton Buerman (Shawano, Wis.) recorded SMU's lone win, delivering a 6-1, 6-3 victory at No. 6 singles.
 
The Cardinals (2-6 MIAC, 9-8 overall) are now off until April 19-20. SMU will host Saint Benedict in a 2 p.m. conference match at the Winona Tennis Center, before closing out its regular-seaosn schedule with a 1 p.m. MIAC showdown at St. Olaf the following day.