Game 1 Boxscore / Game 2 Boxscore
ST. PAUL, Minn. — With their Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference title hopes dashed, and any hopes of receiving an NCAA tournament berth long since forgotten, the Saint Mary's University fastpitch softball team had little left to play for when they closed out their season Wednesday afternoon against Macalester.
But don't tell that to the Cardinals.
Bound and determined to close out this topsy-turvy, up-and-down rollercoaster season on a high note, the Cardinals flexed their muscles, loaded up their bats — and took out their frustrations on the Scots.
SMU banged out 15 hits, including multiple-hit games from six different players, and got a one-hit pitching performance from Jenny Schipp (North St. Paul, Minn.) en route to a 13-0 victory in Game 1. In the nightcap, the Cardinals continued to pour it on, scoring a season-high 21 runs in a 21-3 victory.
Just what kind of ride have the Cardinals been on this season? In the past five days, SMU has played in four doubleheaders — getting swept by St. Thomas 10-6 and 6-1 last Saturday, sweeping Carleton 4-0 and 11-1 on Sunday, getting swept by UW-La Crosse 2-1 and 3-1 on Tuesday, then sweeping Macalester on Wednesday.
In other words, when the Cardinals have been good, they've been very, very good, but when they've been bad … .
Wednesday, the Cardinals were good — very, very good.
Amy Edge (Mineral Point, Wis.) led the Cardinals' offensive onslaught in the opener, going 3-for-4, while Schipp, Niki Lynch (Winona, Minn.), Amy Langer (Savage, Minn.), Amy Lang (Oshkosh, Wis.) and Gina Rizzardi (Woodbury, Minn.) all finished with two hits.
The Cardinals broke open a 1-0 game in the fourth inning, sending 10 batters to the plate and scoring six runs on six hits. Far from finished, SMU plated another six runs in the top of the fifth to ice the win.
Schipp's bid for her first collegiate no-hitter was thwarted in the bottom of the fifth, when Meghan Pederson delivered a single.
It was more of the same in the second game, sort of.
SMU jumped out to a 3-0 lead after their first at-bat, but the Scots came right back to score three runs of their own to tie the game 3-3.
Unfortunately for the Scots, all that did was make the Cardinals made.
And Macalester learned the hard way what happens when the Cardinals get mad.
SMU erupted for 14 runs in the second inning — yes, 14 — to leave little doubt of the outcome. The Cardinals sent 17 batters to the plate in the second inning, with eight of the nine players in the batting order getting at least one hit — in the inning.
Lynch who finished the game 3-for-4 with five RBIs and three runs scored, belted a pair of triples in the second, the first a bases-loaded shot, while Edge delivered a three-run home run and Reghan Cahanes (Woodbury, Minn.) added a two-run double.
The Cardinals added four more runs in the third inning, two coming on Jennifer Gonerka's (St. Paul, Minn.) home run.
With the sweep, SMU closes out its season with a 21-13 overall record and a 16-6 mark in the MIAC.
