WINONA, Minn. — Saturday afternoon almost turned into a complete disaster for the Saint Mary's University volleyball team .

Almost.

The Cardinals entered their MIAC match with St. Catherine having just disposed of Macalester 3-1 the night before.

Add to that the fact that SMU had cruised to a 3-0, 60-minute win over the Wildcats in their first meeting at the SMU Sugar Loaf Classic earlier this season, and it appeared like the Cardinals were in for a rather easy afternoon.

Yeah, right.

St. Catherine took SMU to the limit, winning Games 2 and 3 to take a 2-1 lead in the best-of-five match, only to have the Cardinals regroup and escape with a 3-2, 30-19, 22-30, 20-30, 30-27, 15-9 win.

"Obviously, we did not play very well, but you also have to give St. Catherine a lot of credit — they played a great match," said SMU coach Mike Lester. "I was a little worried before the match, because we didn't seem to have the same intensity that we had (Friday night). We were a little lackluster in our warmup and that concerned me."

The Cardinals put Lester's fears to rest with a convincing 30-19 win in the first game.

"I felt pretty good after that first game," admitted Lester. "I thought we played very well and seemed to have things completely in our control."

Back-to-back losses in Games 2 and 3, however, and suddenly, the Cardinals were spinning out of control.

"It was one of those stretches where, no matter what adjustments we tried to make, nothing worked," said Lester. "Finally I just put our starting six back out there and hoped they could work their way through it."

And they did.

SMU rallied to win Game 4, then dominated the fifth and deciding game en route to their fourth MIAC win in eight matches.

"It wasn't pretty, but at this stage of the game, a win is a win," said Lester, whose team is currently tied with Concordia for the sixth and final MIAC post-season tournament berth with three conference matches remaining. "We've got three huge matches left (Wednesday at league-leading and unbeaten St. Thomas, and Oct. 23 and Oct. 30 at home against Carleton and Gustavus). Hopefully (the match vs. St. Catherine) was a wake-up call for our players — at this stage in the season, with the importance of every match, we can't afford any kind of letdown."

• THIS AND THAT: Kirstan Rouzer (Comstock, Wis.) collected a match-high 20 kills and tallied 15 digs vs. Macalester last Friday, while Tracy Koertgen (Crystal Lake, Ill.) recorded 18 kills and 25 digs, and Ashley Dingels (Gibbon, Minn.) finished with 16 kills, a team-leading .364 attack percentage and a season-high nine blocks. … Against St. Catherine, Dingels ed the way with 17 kills and two blocks. Rouzer chipped in 10 kills and 14 digs, while Katie Christensen (Crystal Lake, Ill.) and Mollie Melton (Oronoco, Minn.) each tallied four blocks. … SMU's 3-1 win vs. Macalester and 3-2 win vs. St. Catherine marked the first times that the Cardinals did not win a match in three straight games. … The win over Macalester snapped SMU's three-match losing streak. … Their current two-match winning streak is the Cardinals' longest since they won back-to-back matches to open the Sugar Loaf Classic on Sept. 6.