For photos of tonight's match / click here

WINONA, Minn. — It was a slim possibility, but the Saint Mary's University volleyball team still had the opportunity to host a Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference postseason tournament game when the Cardinals played host to Gustavus in their regular-season finale Wednesday.

Unfortunately, the Cardinals passed up the opportunity.

In fact, after the second game, the Cardinals didn't pass at all — and the Gusties took advantage, rallying from a Game 1 loss to beat SMU 3-1 (21-30, 33-31, 30-28, 30-17) at the SMU Gym.

"I hate to sound like a broken record, but it's the same old story — passing, passing passing," said SMU coach Mike Lester, whose team closed out the regular season dropping back-to-back MIAC games, and will now hit the road for the opening round of the MIAC tournament. "When we passed well tonight, (Gustavus) couldn't touch us. We hit .472 in the first game an d.395 in the second — you should not lose games when you are hitting like that."

You should lose games, however, when you hit like SMU did in Games 3 and 4, when SMU managed just 22 kills combined on 80 attempts.

"That second game was the difference in the match," said Lester, whose team led the second game 29-25, but gave up five straight points, before eventually falling, 33-31. "Without a doubt, we should have won that match — to be up by four, with Ashley Dingels (Gibbon, Minn.) in the front row, there's no way we should have lost that match."

Things appeared to go from bad to worse in the third game, as SMU fell behind 20-10, before riding the serving of Tessa Stranik (Eatonville, Wash.) — who served nine straight points, including a pair of aces, to pull SMU to within one, 23-22. SMU eventually took its first lead, 26-26, but the Gusties bounced back, winning five of the game's final seven points.

"It was good to see us battle back like that, especially considering how poorly we were passing," said Lester. "We just couldn't get over the hump.

"It's a tough loss, but we'll be fine," continued Lester, whose team ends up as the conference tournament's No. 6 seed, and will travel to St. Benedict for a 7:30 p.m. match on Tuesday. "We've gone up there (to Ben's) and beaten them once this year (3-2 on Sept. 24), so we know what we have to do — we just have to make sure we go out there and get the job done."