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WINONA, Minn. — After a nightmarish Game 1 in their Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference doubleheader against Concordia, the Saint Mary's University baseball team was hoping for a little more memorable performance in the nightcap.
Unfortunately for Saint Mary's, Concordia's Braden Rahman decided to continue to haunt the Cardinals.
Rahman, who went 3-for-5 and drove in seven runs in the Cobbers' 22-2 win in the opener Tuesday, broke a 3-3 tie with a game-winning double in the top of the seventh inning to lift Concordia to a 4-3 win and a sweep of the teams' conference twinbill at Max Molock Field.
"It was a tough day at the ballpark," said SMU coach
Nick Winecke. "That first game … we just couldn't get an out, and before you know it, it's 13-0. In the second game, we put ourselves in position to win, we just couldn't get a key hit. We got runners on, we just couldn't drive them in."
Nothing went right for the Cardinals in the opener, as the Cobbers came out swinging — sending 16 batters to the plate in their first at-bat, scoring 13 times to put SMU in a 13-run hole before the Cardinals had even come to the plate.
Concordia would add three more runs in the second and six more in the third to push its advantage to 22-0, before SMU scored single runs in the fourth and seventh.
CC starter Jackson Mealand held the Cardinals hitless until
Vince Lulic (Mendota Heights, Minn.) foiled the left-hander's no-hit bid with a one-out RBI single to left in the fourth.
Andy Edholm (Hudson, Wis.) added SMU's second hit in the fourth — a single down the right-field line — while
Matt Tessmer's (West St. Paul, Minn.) one-out double in the seventh accounted for SMU's other opening-game hit.
The Cobbers battered three SMU pitchers for 19 hits — getting at least one hit from all nine starters, while only catcher Jan-Erik Lindberg was the only CC starter not to score at least one run. Rahman led the Cobbers offensive charge, going 3-for-5 — including a three-run double and a three-run home run.
Concordia used a three-run third inning to grab a 3-0 lead in the nightcap, but the Cardinals whittled away, scoring once in the fourth on an RBI groundout by
Mike Feriancek (River Falls, Wis.), then knotting the game at 3-3 with two runs in the fifth — the first on
Jon Schlemmer's (De Pere, Wis.) RBI double and the second on a Cobber fielding error.
SMU threatened in the bottom of the sixth, but Tessmer was stranded on second, as the teams headed to the seventh still deadlocked at 3-3.
Brad Olson manufactured a one-out walk against SMU reliever
Tyler Krysiak and Rahman followed with a double to left-center to score Olson with the eventual game-winning run. SMU again threatened in their half of the seventh, putting runners on first and second with one out, but CC reliever Bryce Feia induced a pair of fly ball outs to preserve the win.
Schlemmer went 2-for-4 to account for two of SMU's six runs in the nightcap, with Feriancek, Tessmer, Lulic and
Paul LaNasa (Mahtomedi, Minn.) each adding one hit. SMU, which had a base runner in every inning but the first, stranded 12 runners on base in Game 2 — including seven in scoring position.
The Cardinals (0-6 MIAC, 11-14 overall) are back in action on Saturday, as SMU travels to St. Peter, Minn., for a 1 p.m. conference doubleheader against Gustavus.