WINONA, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University of Minnesota fastpitch softball team tried a couple different ways to knock off Bethel Thursday afternoon.
 
The Cardinals tried jumping out to an early lead in the opening game of their Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference doubleheader, and they tried playing catch-up in Game 2.
 
Unfortunately for Saint Mary's, neither strategy paid off, as the Royals dealt the Cardinals a pair of conference setbacks—8-7 and 3-1—at the Saint Mary's Field.
 
The Cardinals—thanks to the bat of Allie Borawski (Stickney, Ill.)—jumped out to a 3-1 lead after three innings, only to have Bethel scored seven unanswered runs to take a commanding 8-3 advantage.
 
Borawski delivered a two-run double in the bottom of the first—erasing an early 1-0 BU lead—and added an RBI sacrifice fly in the third to make it 3-1 Cardinals.
 
Bethel's bats came to life in the fourth, scoring three times, while adding back-to-back two-run innings in the fifth and sixth.
 
The Cardinals clawed back to within one, 8-7, with a four-run sixth—highlighted by an RBI single from Kali Aldrich (Rochester, Minn.), a two-run triple by Mariah Harper (Schaumburg, Ill.), and a run-scoring double off the bat of Stanzy Snyder (Johnston, Iowa).
 
Saint Mary's threatened again in the seventh, getting runners on first and second with two outs, only to have pinch-runner Molly Urban (Roseville, Minn.) thrown out trying to score on Harper's single to center field.
 
Snyder finished with three hits in four at-bats, while Harper, Borawski, and Alex Raske (Chicago, Ill.) all chipped in two hits to pace the Cardinals' 12-hit Game 1 offensive attack.
 
Bethel grabbed the upper hand early in the nightcap, scoring twice in its first at-bat, before pushing their lead to 3-0 with a solo run in the third.
 
Saint Mary's plated its lone run in the bottom of the third on an RBI groundout by Ashley Betzold (Farmington, Minn.)
 
Over the final four innings, however, the Cardinals would managed just one hit and would not get a runner past second base, as they fell to 2-2 in conference play and 8-8 overall.
 
Raske, Snyder and Brittney Birkhauser (Wisconsin Rapids, Wis.) accounted for Saint Mary's three hits, while Betzold was the hard-luck losing in the pitcher's circle, as the sophomore allowed just three runs on five hits in tossing her second complete game of the afternoon.
 
The Cardinals are back in action on Monday, hosting Gustavus in a 2:30 p.m. conference doubleheader at the Saint Mary's Field.