Game 1 Boxscore / Game 2 Boxscore
ST. JOSEPH, Minn. — Timely hitting has been a thorn in the Saint Mary's University fastpitch softball team's side all season, and Thursday afternoon, the Cardinals picked another inopportune time to have their bats go silent.
SMU managed just 11 hits in its Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference doubleheader against St. Benedict — including just two in the first game — as the Blazers handed the Cardinals a pair of one-run losses.
CSB scored two runs in the bottom of the eighth inning to beat the Cardinals 2-1 in the first game, then scored four runs in the fourth inning — and held off a late SMU charge — to post a 4-3 win in Game 2.
Cardinal pitcher Jenny Schipp (North St. Paul, Minn.) and Blazer hurler Ani Jordan matched each other zero for zero, as the two dueled to a 0-0 tie through seven innings. SMU's lone hit off Jordan through seven innings was a fifth-inning, one-out single by Amy Langer (Savage, Minn.). The Blazers, meanwhile, managed just five hits off Schipp through seven, but never got a runner past second base.
Then came the eighth.
SMU got its lone run when Jenni Gutterman (Shoreview, Minn.) reached on an error and scored on Nikki Jung's (Inver Grove Heights, Minn.) RBI fielder's choice. The lead was short-lived, however, as St. Benedict tagged Schipp for three hits — inclduing a two-out RBI double by Kari Dykhoff and a game-wining RBI single by Ellie Jelsing.
It was more nail-biting in the second game, as SMU tried to rally from three runs down in the top of the seventh inning, only to have the game-tying run thrown out at third base.
SMU opened the scoring with a single run in the fourth, but the Blazers came back with four runs in the fifth to take a 4-1 lead into the seventh.
SMU loaded the bases in the seventh with one out, and got an RBI single from Mandy Tschernach (Rice Lake, Wis.) that scored Krista Conway (Mendota Heights, Minn.) and Hanni Lohmann (Shoreview, Minn.), but Gutterman was caught in a rundown that ended the inning — and the Cardinals' threat.
