Game 1 Boxscore / Game 2 Boxscore
ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University fastpitch softball team did something no other Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference team had been able to do against two-time defending national champion St. Thomas – score a run.
The Tommies entered Saturday's conference doubleheader against the Cardinals having outscored their first four MIAC opponents 70-0 en route to a perfect 8-0 record.
That string, however, came to an end in the sixth inning of Game 1 Saturday, as Cassie Otte (Randolph, Minn.) scored on a wild pitch.
The Cardinals then erupted for one run in the second and three more in the fifth in the second game, marking just the third time in their 26 games this season that the Tommies had allowed more than four runs.
Problem was, those were the silver linings around the dark cloud that was a 3-1, 9-4 UST sweep Saturday afternoon.
"St. Thomas is a very, very good team — they are solid from top to bottom," said Fennern of the nation's top-ranked team — which extended its winning streak to 42 in a row against NCAA Division III opponents and has now won 58 of its last 59 games. "They are the complete package — they have hitters up-and-down their lineup and their pitchers are among the best in the nation."
Which makes SMU's accomplishments — holding UST to just three Game 1 runs, and scoring four Game 2 runs off Tommie ace Janet Nagel — that much more gratifying.
"We felt if we could put together two perfect games, we could beat them — but we needed to be perfect, and we weren't quite there," said Fennern, whose team gave UST a pair of unearned runs in the third inning of the first game, and couldn't silence UST's 12-hit attack in the nightcap. "But I'm very pleased with the way we played. We gave up just one earned run against a great-hitting ball club (in the first game) — a bounce here or there and we could have won that game 3-1 as easily as we lost it 3-1. And then to get four runs off (Janet) Nagel … I think we proved that we can play with anyone."
The Tommies jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the opener, scoring once in the first inning, then adding those two unearned runs in the third, before SMU finally got on the board — and broke UST's shutout string — in the sixth.
UST got out of the blocks early again in Game 2, scoring three runs in the bottom of the first inning. SMU got one back on a bases-loaded, RBI walk by Otte, but the Tommies responded with single runs in the second and third, and two more in the fourth to push their lead to 7-1.
SMU's offense then showed signs of life, as Nikki Jung (Inver Grove Heights, Minn.) delivered a two-run single and Tara Close (North St. Paul, Minn.) added an RBI ground out to cut the UST lead to 7-4.
That, however, was as close as SMU would get, as the Tommies added two more runs in their half of the fifth to ice the win — and move two games in front of the Cardinals in the MIAC standings.
"I was proud of the way we kept battling back in the second game," said Fennern, whose Cardinals — who entered Saturday's games 6-0 in the MIAC and in the midst of a season-high seven-game winning streak. "We knew how tough it was going to be to beat (St. Thomas). We weren't able to come away with a win, but there certainly were plenty of positives that we can take from those two games."
