PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. — The Saint Mary's University baseball team proved to be its own worst enemy Monday afternoon against Mass. College of Liberal Arts.

Fortunately for the Cardinals, Dan Cosgrove (South St. Paul, Minn.) hopped into the nearest telephone booth and transformed into SMU's very own super hero.

MCLA scored seven runs, only one of which were earned, thanks to eight SMU errors, but thanks to Cosgrove's super powers —  a tireless right arm and a fully loaded bat — the Cardinals were able to overcome their defensive shortcomings to come away with an 8-7 win.

"The biggest thing today was that, when the game came pretty hard to us — especially defensively — our pitchers really kept them composure," said SMU coach Nick Whaley, whose team improved to 4-1 overall. "Cos pitched outstanding. His first collegiate start, he strikes out six and walks one, that's amazing. Add to that the fact that goes 3-for-3 a home run, it was just a great day all around for him."

MCLA took advantage of four SMU errors in the game's first three innings to take a 3-1 advantage, but Ryan Majerus (St. Charles, Minn.) kept the Cardinals in the game, driving in a run in the first on a one-out single to center, then tying the game 3-3 with a one-out, two-run home run in the bottom of the third. Cosgrove then gave the Cardinals the lead for good with a two-out third-inning single as SMU scored four times to take a 5-3 advantage.

Cosgrove's first home run of the season in the fourth pushed the SMU lead to 6-3, and, after allowing MCLA to climb within one, 6-5, with single runs in the sixth and seventh, the Cardinals got a clutch, two-out, two-run single from Jose Rueda (Winona, Minn.) in the bottom of the seventh to push the lead back to three, 8-5.

But the Cardinals' defense wasn't done making things tough on themselves, as MCLA took advantage of two more SMU errors in the eighth and ninth to cut the lead back to one, 8-7. With the tying run on second and one out, Grant Barthel (Watertown, Minn.) got a pair of fly outs to ice the win and earn his first collegiate save.

"We have to get better defensively — hopefully that will come from playing more," said Whaley. "The problem in a game like this was, you make one or two mistakes and it just snowballs. But give our guys credit, they never hung their heads, they never got down on themselves, they just kept battling, and that was good to see."