WINONA, Minn. — The strategy was a no-brainer.

The Saint Mary's University women's soccer team had given up 10 first-half goals in its last two games, so when the Cardinals won the coin toss for last Saturday's Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference match against Bethel, coach Dan Blank elected to take the wind — a wind that was gusting to 30 mph from one end of the field to the other – in the first half.

"We have been such a slow-starting team, the idea was, to try and use that wind to our advantage early," explained Blank. "We wanted to try and punch in a goal or two in that first half and keep that momentum in the second.

"It was an obvious decision."

So much for the obvious.

The Cardinals failed to score on 11 shots in the first 45 minutes, but then erupted for three goals in the second half — against the wind — en route to a 3-0 victory over the Royals at Ochrymowycz Field.

"It feels so good to see this team finally get rewarded for their efforts," said Blank, whose team not only snapped a nine-game losing streak, but they also put an end to their 16-game MIAC losing skid. "This team has improved so much since the beginning of the year — and today we really showed how far we've come.

"This was by far our best game of the season."

Entering Saturday's game, Bethel and SMU were virtual mirror images of each other:

* Both had scored eight goals this season.

* Both had five players who accounted for all of their scoring.

* Both were in the midst of extended losing streaks (SMU's at nine and Bethel's at 12).

* And the last time either had won an MIAC contest, it was against the other (Bethel's was a 4-0 win vs. SMU on Nov. 2, 2002, while SMU's was a 2-1 win vs. the Royals on Oct. 27, 2001).

"I told the team before the game that this was going to be a game decided by which team wanted it more," said Blank. "(Bethel) has a very similar team to us, and I knew going in that it was going to be a fight to the end."

Fortunately for the Cardinals, not scoring with the wind in the first half didn't knock the wind out of their offense.

The Cardinals got on the board 13 minutes into the second half, as Diane Schirmers (Prior Lake, Minn.) scored her team-leading fourth goal. Sara Goodnature (Rochester, Minn.) made it 2-0 13 minutes later, and Kelli Mooney (Maple Grove, Minn.) closed out the second with her third of the season at the 83:02 mark.

Now, if the Cardinals can just put together an encore performance this afternoon, as they play host to Carleton.

“Beating Bethel was a great win for us,” said Blank. “This team has worked so hard all season — they deserved that win. But we can’t sit back and relax now. We have improved so much already this year, but we need to keep striving to improve every game.

“Carleton’s going to be a tough test, but if we can get the same type of effort we got (against Bethel), we’ll be right in it.”