Game 1 Box / Game 2 Box / GameDay Online

ARDEN HILLS, Minn. — On Tuesday, the Saint Mary's University fastpitch softball team hammered St. Olaf pitching for 30 hits and 19 runs in cruising to an 11-1, 8-2 Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference sweep of the Oles.

Twenty-four hours later, those sizzling bats went into a deep freeze, as Bethel limited the Cardinals to just one run on four hits — two off the bat of lead-off hitter Cassie Otte (Randolph, Minn.) — en route to a 5-1 game 1 victory Wednesday.

Fortunately for the Cardinals, that early-April deep-freeze was short-lived, as SMU more than doubled its Game 1 hit total, and scored six times in the nightcap.

Unfortunately for the Cardinals, nine hits and six runs weren't enough, as Bethel got a walk-off, two-run home run from Lynnae Thompson to cap a four-run seventh inning and lead the Royals to an 8-6 Game 2 win, and a sweep of the teams' conference twinbill.

“That second game is a tough (loss) to swallow,” said SMU coach Jen Miller. “Offensively, I was happy with the way we rebounded from a poor performance in the first game, but we weren't able to get the outs when we needed them down the stretch.

“I felt pretty good going into the seventh inning (leading 6-4), we just couldn't get the job done.”

After spotting the Royals a 3-0 lead through two innings in Game 2, SMU began to claw its way back, scoring twice in the top of the third on a two-out, two-run single by Katy Gannon (Roselle, Ill.), then taking a 5-3 advantage with three runs in the fifth.

SMU plated what appeared to be an insurance run in the top of the seventh, but the two-run lead was not enough, as Bethel scored four times in its final at-bat, tying the game on a two-out, two-run single by Ashley Lindberg, and Thompson followed with her first home run of the season.

Hanna Schmitt (Rosemount, Minn.) led the Cardinals' nine-hit, Game 2 attack, going 2-for-4, while Gannon drove in three of SMU's six runs.

SMU's offense was virtually non-existent in the opener, as Otte's two singles — one to lead off the first and the other to open the third — accounted for two of the team's four hits. Bethel, meanwhile, tagged SMU starter Mallory Betzold (Farmington, Minn.) for five runs on 11 hits, while scoring twice in both the first and fifth innings, and adding a single run in the sixth.

The Cardinals, who fall to 5-3 in the MIAC and 13-7 overall, are back in action Saturday, playing host to Concordia in an 11 a.m. conference doubleheader at the SMU Field.