WINONA, Minn. — UW-La Crosse came into Friday's nonconference game against the Saint Mary's University baseball team having banged out a school-record 25 hits en route to a 20-9 victory over UW-Stout on Wednesday.
And the Eagles picked up right where they left off against the Cardinals, scoring three times in the first inning and never looking back in rolling to a 16-6 victory over SMU at Max Molock Field.
“It was not a good day for us,” said SMU coach
Nick Winecke, whose team fell to 8-15 overall with the loss. “We did not play well in any facet of the game — you can't give up 16 runs and 20-plus hits … you can't commit three errors … and you can't swing the bats the way we did today, and expect to win baseball games.”
Unlike Wednesday's offensive onslaught against UW-Stout, when UW-L collected 11 extra-base hits — including five home runs — the Eagles nearly singled the Cardinals to death Friday, rapping 18 singles among their 21 hits.
UW-La Crosse came out swinging from the opening pitch, as Corey Geary opened the game with a lead-0ff single, and before SMU starter
Sam Nord (Mendota Heights, Minn.) could get the final out of the first inning, the Eagles were in front 3-0.
And that was just the start of the things to come, as UW-L pushed it lead to 5-0 with two runs in the third, then added back-to-back three-run innings in the fourth and fifth and scored another solo run in the sixth to take a 12-0 advantage.
SMU finally got on the board in the bottom of the seventh, as
Chris Bogie (St. Paul, Minn.) scored on a wild pitch. The Eagles would plate four more runs in the top of the eighth, before the Cardinals' bats came to life, scoring twice in the eighth and three times in the ninth.
Bogie,
Andrew Warren (Stillwater, Minn.) and
Vince Lulic (Mendota Heights, Minn.) and
Jake Lechner (Shoreview, Minn.) all finished with two hits for the Cardinals. Bogie also drove in a pair of runs for SMU, which finished with 11 hits against five UW-L pitchers.
“This is one of those games we need to learn from and put behind us as soon as we can,” said Winecke, whose team is right back in action on Saturday, traveling to St. Peter, Minn. for a conference doubleheader against Gustavus. “You can't dwell on a game like this — you just hope it's a good learning experience and it doesn't happen again.”
