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WINONA, Minn. — Two runs was enough for the Saint Mary's University baseball team to beat Hamline 2-1 in 10 innings on April 8.
And five runs was enough for the Cardinals to make it a clean sweep, as SMU beat the Pipers a second time, 5-4.
Four runs should have been enough for SMU to make it 3-for-3, as the Cardinals took a 4-2 lead into the top of the seventh inning in the opener of their Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference doubleheader against Carleton Monday afternoon.
Should have been — except that someone forgot to tell the Knights that.
Carleton erupted for five runs in the top of the seventh, then held off a meager SMU seventh-inning rally to beat the Cardinals 7-5.
SMU left little doubt in the nightcap, scoring two runs in the first, third, fourth and fifth innings — then erupted for seven, sixth-inning runs en route to a 15-5 Game 2 win.
"I was glad to see us bounce back the way we did, but that first game was very disappointing," said SMU coach
Nick Whaley, whose team had snapped a 2-2 tie with two runs in the bottom of the sixth inning, only to give up four runs on a bases-loaded triple and an error in the top of the seventh to drop the opener. "We did not come ready to play, and in this league, that's something you can't afford to do.
"We let a win slip right through our fingers, and that's disappointing. The fact that we came back and swung the bats well in the second game was a testament to the way this team never gives up," Whaley added. "Everyone was pretty down (after the opener), but they put it behind them and focused on the second game."
And what a second game it was.
After giving up a run in the top of the first, SMU responded with the first of its four two-run innings in its first at-bat — only to give the two runs (plus one more) back when Carleton scored three more runs off SMU starter Matt Wilgenbush
(Durango, Iowa).
Enter
David Olson (Coon Rapids, Minn.).
The freshman right-hander came on in the top of the third and limited the Knights to just four hits and one run in five innings to earn his second career victory.
And while Olson was keeping the Knights off the board, the Cardinals were busy teeing off on three Carleton hurlers, scoring two runs in the bottom of the third and two more in the fourth to take the lead for good, 6-4. SMU would make it 8-4 with two runs on eight hits in the fifth, before breaking the game wide open with their seven-run seventh — an inning that was highlighted by back-to-back triples, a base-loaded three-bagger from
Brady Knudsen (Racine, Wis.) and a shot by
Brandon Haugh (Easton, Minn.) to the exact same spot in left-center.
"David pitched great — we needed him to come out and give us a solid pitching effort, and that's exactly what he did," said Whaley, whose squad helped Olson out, collecting a season-high 22 hits — including a 4-for-5 efforts from
Kyle Ryan (St. Paul, Minn.) and
Andrew Warren (Stillwater, Minn.). "I thought we had some great at-bats (in the second game) — we were much more patient at the plate in the second game than we were in the first."
Trailing 2-1 after one inning in the opener, the Cardinals pulled even on an RBI double by
Kevin Black (Mahtomedi, Minn.), then took a 4-2 lead on a pinch-hit, two-out RBI single off the bat of
Zach Olberding (Maplewood, Minn.) and an RBI double by
David Krieger (Mendota Heights, Minn.) in the bottom of the sixth.
Unfortunately for the Cardinals, a two-run lead after six doesn't mean a thing if you can't get the final three outs.
After Zach Miller led off the Knights' seventh with a home run, a walk, double and intentional walk loaded the bases with nobody out. Jacob Anderson followed with a towering blast over the head of Knudsen in center field for a three-run triple, and when Haugh couldn't handle the relay throw, Anderson scored the Knights' fifth run of the inning.
"We saw a little bit of everything today — some good, and some not-so-good," said Whaley, whose team moved to 3-5 in the MIAC and 6-11 overall with the split. "You can't afford to take anything for granted — you have to play every out of every inning — and, hopefully, that's the lesson we learned today."
