Game 1 Box Score /
Game 2 Box Score /
GameDay Online
WINONA, Minn. — A Game 1 victory was there for the taking for the Saint Mary's University fastpitch softball team Wednesday afternoon — and the Cardinals almost left it stranded.
Literally.
SMU left 12 runners on base, including failing to score at least one run with the bases loaded and no one out — not once, but twice — and the Cardinals still managed to come away with a 3-2 victory over the Royals in the opener of their Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference doubleheader at the Cotter Field.
The Cardinals didn't have that stranded feeling in Game 2 — probably because they couldn't get any runners on to begin with. Bethel pitcher
Nea Harkness held SMU to just four hits — all singles and all by different players — as the Royals salvaged a splt with a 5-1 win.
"It's pretty disappointing right now — we let that second game slip away from us," said SMU coach Jen Miller, whose team had won its last seven meetings vs. Bethel heading into Game 2 Wednesday. "I thought we dodged a bullet in that first game — to leave that many runners on base, including those two bases-loaded situations, and still win, that should have been a big boost for us.
"Instead, we came out flat (in the second game), and Bethel made us pay for it."
Bethel got on the board first in the opener, but SMU bounced back with two runs in the bottom of the first, getting an RBI triple off the bat of Jenny Giannini (River Grove, Ill.) and a run-scoring double from Hannah Schmitt(Rosemount, Minn.). The Royals pulled even at 2-2 with a single run in the fifth, but the Cardinals again had an answer, as Danielle Geske (Rosemount, Minn.) drove in the game-winning run with a two-out single in the bottom of the sixth.
Katy Gannon(Roselle, Ill.) accounted for the Cardinals' only offensive highlight in the nightcap, as the Cardinal freshman launched her first collegiate home run, a solo shot in the bottom of the first, to give SMU a 1-0 advantage.
An advantage that lasted just two innings, as Bethel erupted for four runs in the top of the third and added another insurance run in the seventh in handing the Cardinals their first conference loss in six contests.
"We did not swing the bats well at all today," said Miller, who did get three hits from Cassie Otte(Randolph, Minn.), who extended her hitting streak to 17 games with a 2-for-4 performance in the opener and a 1-for-3 showing in Game 2. "We never were able to get the timely hits we needed to break (Game 1) open, and then we weren't able to get much going offensively at all in the second game.
"We've got to do a better job at the plate, it's that simple."
