MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — It's been a week of streaks for the Saint Mary's University fastpitch softball team.

* On Tuesday, SMU beat Bethel twice, 8-0 and 7-2, improving to 27-1 in their last 28 meetings vs. the Royals — including wins in the teams' last six meetings.

* On Thursday, the Cardinals came out on the short end of 2-0 and 3-2 decisions against Gustavus, extending SMU's winless streak vs. the Gusties to four straight.

* On Saturday, Concordia did something it hadn't been able to do against SMU in the last 16 innings against the Cardinals — score a run. The Cobbers' five runs weren't enough as SMU swept the doubleheader, 4-3, 7-2, and have now beaten Concordia four straight times and in 15 of their last 16 meetings.

* On Sunday, SMU picked up its 25th straight against Augsburg — dating back to the Auggies' 5-4, 6-4 sweep on April 13, 1994 — with a 15-5 victory.

And, while the Auggies could not stop the Cardinals Sunday afternoon, Mother Nature could — as a constant downpour forced the postponement of the second game of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference doubleheader.

"We had finally gotten out offense kicked into high gear, it's too bad we couldn't keep playing," said SMU coach Jen Miller, whose team's 15-run outburst was a season high. "Offensively, we needed a game like that — a game where everyone made good contact."

Heading into the sixth inning, however, the Cardinals' offense was almost nonexistent.

SMU plated an unearned run in the first, then got an RBI sacrifice fly from Tara Close (North St. Paul, Minn.) in the third, and an RBI single from Nikki Jung (Inver Grove Heights, Minn.) in the fifth. Augsburg, meanwhile, plated one run in the fourth and two more in the fifth to pull even at 3-3.

Then came the sixth inning.

And what a sixth inning it was.

The Cardinals sent 14 batters to the plate, taking advantage of eight hits — all singles — a fielder's choice, a hit batter and a walk to score nine runs and take a commanding 12-3 lead.

After giving back three runs in the bottom of the sixth, SMU put the game out of reach with a three-run seventh, taking advantage of a pair of Auggie errors to score three unearned runs.

"We let (Augsburg) stick around and stick around, and then all of the sudden, it's a 3-3 game," said Miller, whose team collected 14 hits — all singles. "But then everything seemed to click all at once. We just kept stringing hits together in that sixth inning. It was nice to see us break out like that.

"Hopefully, we can keep that going when we go back up there Tuesday (for the second game of the doubleheader)."