WINONA, Minn. - With leading scorer Jeff Tendall (LeClarie, Iowa) forced out of the lineup due to injury, the Saint Mary’s University men’s basketball team struggled in its Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference opener last Saturday against Augsburg.

Two minutes after the opening tip-off, Tendall, who currently averages 12.7 points per game for the Cardinals and also leads in assists (4) and steals (5), went down with an injury and never returned - and the Auggies took advantage, using a 37-24 first-half scoring edge to beat the Cardinals 75-65 at the SMU Gym.

"When you take your best player - not to mention one of the best players in the league - out of the game, you struggle," said SMU coach Mike Trewick, whose Cardinals are still searching for their first win four games into the season. "We struggled in the first half and had a nice comeback in the second, but we needed Tendall out there."

Augsburg (2-0 MIAC, 2-3 overall) seemed to dominate the court offensively and defensively in the first half, taking off on a 13-point run to turn a 6-5 nailbiter into a 17-5 laugher.

The Cardinals (0-1, 0-4) struggled with Augsburg’s zone defense, and despite seven consecutive points from Dan Kloak (Elmwood, Ill.), SMU turned the ball over 11 times and managed to shoot only 30 percent in field goals, while the Auggies put out a 51 percent effort.

But that was the first half - the game wasn't over yet.

Like a brand-new team with a brand-new attitude, SMU shined in the second half, scoring 41 points - including 20 of Eric Lear's (Antoich, Ill.) career-high 23 points - shooting 47 percent from the field, and only turning the ball over four times.

A sign of good things to come? Trewick sure hopes so.

"At halftime, I told them (to beat the zone defense), they needed to keep cutting and to cut hard," said Trewick, whose team opened the week with a 71-40 loss to cross-town rival Winona State - a game in which Kloak's eight points were a team high. "When you play hard all the time and give a consistent effort, there's no stopping you.

"Although the final score didn’t say it, we dominated the second half. Now we need to hang on for a win."

Kloak, who entered halftime with a team-high 15 points, finished the game with a team-leading 25 points, while Lear also had five rebounds to go with his 23 points.