Game 1 Boxscore / Game 2 Boxscore
ST. PAUL, Minn. — The end result was two more Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference wins for the Saint Mary's University fastpitch softball team — but there was nothing easy about it.
The Cardinals scored four runs in the third inning to rally from a 3-0 deficit and win the opener 4-3, then erupted for five runs in the top of the ninth inning — including a three-run home run off the bat of Tara Close (North St. Paul, Minn.) to complete the sweep with a 9-4 triumph in the nightcap.
"We certainly had to work for the wins today," said SMU coach Nikki Fennern, whose team had opened MIAC play with 8-0 and 8-1 wins over Hamline on Wednesday. "We dug ourselves a couple of holes, but each time we were able to dig ourselves right back out."
The Cardinals spotted St. Catherine a 3-0 lead in the opener, giving up a single run in the first and two more in the second. But SMU got its offense on track in the fourth, scoring four times to take a 4-3 advantage.
And a one-run lead is all Cardinal pitcher Jenny Schipp (Oakdale, Minn.) needed, as the SMU senior shut the Wildcats out over the final five innings to secure the win. Overshadowed in SMU's offensive exploits was the record-setting effort of Schipp, whose second-inning strikeout — the fourth of her seven strikeouts in the game — gave the SMU senior the all-time career strikeout record
The Cardinals waited a bit longer before rallying for the Game 2 win, as St. Catherine held leads of 2-0 and 4-2 — the latter after scoring two runs in the bottom of the sixth — only to have SMU rally for two runs in the top of the seventh to send the game into extra innings.
And in the ninth, the Cardinals really kicked their offense into high gear.
Nikki Jung (Inver Grove Heights, Minn.) drove in the first run with an RBI single, and, after Jenny Giannini (River Grove, Ill.) was hit by a pitch, Close and Megan Wallisch (Loveland, Colo.) delivered back-to-back home runs — both the first of their collegiate careers — to put the game out of reach.
