Game 1 Boxscore / Game 2 Boxscore
NORTHFIELD, Minn — With a berth in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Tournament already tucked safely away in their back pocket, the Saint Mary's University fastpitch softball team still had a few items remaining on their agenda with four conference games left on the schedule.
Item No. 1: Catch St. Thomas and win the MIAC's regular-season title. Sure, SMU would need a little help with this one, but in order to do their part, the Cardinals would need a pair of sweeps in their final two conference doubleheaders.
Item No. 2: Position themselves for the MIAC Tournament. If SMU doesn't get the outside help it needs to land the regular-season conference title — and the tournament's No. 1 seed — the Cardinals needed to make sure they held down the No. 2 spot. Again, four wins would accomplish that.
Thanks to Thursday's 4-0, 10-1 sweep of Carleton, the Cardinals are one — make that two — steps closer to scratching another item off their to-do list.
"We played very well — we started a bit slow (in the first game), but once the bats got going, we just kept rolling," said SMU coach Nikki Fennern, whose team has now won 14 straight conference games. "We've still got a lot to play for — we knew we couldn't afford to have any type of letdown. We went out and got the job done."
Jenny Schipp (North St. Paul, Minn.) did most of the work in the opener, going 2-for-4 at the plate, then taking to the mound and holding the Knights to just three hits, while striking out a season-high 16 en route to her 17th win of the season. Jenni Gutterman (Shoreview, Minn.) picked up a pair of hits in three at-bats, while Nikki Jung (Inver Grove Heights, Minn.) belted a solo home run in the sixth.
The Cardinals made it look much easier in Game 2, scoring six times in the first inning, then adding a single run in the third, two runs in the fourth and another in the fifth. SMU banged out 10 hits, including home runs by Regan Cahanes (Woodbury, Minn.) and Jennifer Thesing (Lewiston, Minn.) — her first collegiate HR — while holding the Knights to just two.
"this was a good sweep for us," said Fennern. "We need to keep playing at a high level, and I think we did that."
