WINONA, Minn. — If Saint Mary's University baseball coach
Nick Winecke were granted one wish Sunday, it would have been to erase a single inning from each game of his team's Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference doubleheader against Macalester at Max Molock Field — doing away with the second inning of Game 1 and the third inning of Game 2.
Unfortunately for Winecke and the Cardinals, there are no do-overs in collegiate baseball — and the erasing of innings is just wishful thinking — as Macalester used its five-run second inning to beat SMU 5-0 in the opener, then erupted for seven third-inning runs en route to a sweep-clinching 9-2 victory in the nightcap.
“Two innings were the difference,” said Winecke, whose team closed out its season at 4-16 in the MIAC and 12-28 overall. “We battled from start to finish, we just let (Macalester) have those two big innings and that cost us.”
The Scots got to Game 1 starter
Brett Ferschweiler (Rochester, Minn.) — one of eight Cardinal seniors playing in their final collegiate doubleheader — for five runs on six hits, including five singles and a double — in the second inning. Macalester's second-inning outburst accounted for all the Scots' offense, as the Cardinals' senior right-hander scattered five hits the rest of the way in recording his fourth straight complete game, walking one and striking out two.
Macalester's James Murrey, meanwhile, limited SMU to just three hits — an
Andrew Warren (Stillwater, Minn.) single in the first, a
Curt Swanson (Woodbury, Minn.) single in the second and a
Vince Lulic (Mendota Heights, Minn.) double in the seventh — in posting his MIAC record-tying 28th career victory. Murrey fanned nine, pushing his league-leading strikeout total to 60.
The Cardinals collected as many hits in the first inning of Game 2 as they had in all of Game 1, as SMU used three singles — including a one-out, run-scoring single to center by Swanson — to jump out to a 1-0 first-inning advantage.
The lead, however, was short-lived, as Macalester sent 12 batters to plate in scoring seven runs in the third inning. The Scots would add two more runs in the top of the fifth, before the Cardinals tallied their final run on a Macalester passed ball in the bottom of the sixth.
Teddy VanRanst (St. Paul, Minn.) was tagged for seven earned runs in 2 1/3 innings, while
Casey Jacobson (Apple Valley, Minn.) surrendered two runs in 2 1/3 innings. Seniors
David Dahlstrom (Rochester, Minn.),
Willy Shetka (West St. Paul, Minn.) and
Joe Krause (St. James, Minn.) worked the last 2 1/3 innings. Dahlstrom worked out of a two-out, bases-loaded jam in the fifth then allowed just one hit in a four-batter sixth, while Shetka opened the seventh with a walk but got Macalester's Mitch Glasser to ground into a double play, and Krause closed things out, allowing a two-out single, before getting the Scots' Robert Williams to ground into a force-out to end the inning.
Kyle Ryan (St. Paul, Minn.) — who started his 138th straight game in Game 2 — went 2-for-4 with a run scored in his final contest, while fellow seniors
Zach Olberding (Maplewood, Minn.),
Ryan Archambault (Faribault, Minn.) and
John Swenson (Eagan, Minn.) all had a hit in their final game as a Cardinal.
“It was good to senior the seniors all perform well in their final collegiate games,” said Winecke. “Obviously it would have been nice to send the seniors out with a couple of wins, but I was proud of the way our guys battled all afternoon.
“There were plenty of highs and lows this season, but all-in-all, I'd say the guys can be proud of what they accomplished,” Winecke added. “We aren't where we want to be yet, but I think we certainly took a step in the right direction.”
