Box Score 1 | Box Score 2  | GameDay Preview

ST. JOSEPH, Minn. — There was no sugar-coating the importance of Sunday's Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference doubleheader against Saint Benedict for the Saint Mary's University fastpitch softball team.

Win, and the Cardinals' are in the driver's seat in the fast-and-furious race for a spot in the MIAC Tournament.

Lose — even once — and the Cardinals would be left in the post-season tournament dust.

Vroom, vroom.

The Cardinals — fueled by Sunday's 3-0 and 6-1 victories over the Blazers — jumped into the fourth and final spot for the upcoming MIAC Tournament with two games remaining. St. Thomas (19-1), Gustavus (18-2) and Augsburg (13-9) have already locked up the top three playoff berths, leaving Saint Mary's (11-9), Saint Benedict (10-10) and Bethel (9-11) battling for the remaining spot.

SMU closes out its regular-season Tuesday at home against Gustavus, while Bethel meets Carleton (5-15) and Saint Benedict squares off against St. Thomas on Monday. One win against the Gusties locks up a post-season berth for the Cardinals, but if GAC sweeps SMU, things get a little more nerve-wracking for the Cardinals.

If the Cardinals and Blazers finish in a tie, SMU holds the tie-breaker via Sunday's sweep, while SMU and Bethel split their regular-season meeting, meaning it would go to tiebreaker No. 2 — cumulative record against each team from the bottom up of those teams tied (i.e. if two teams are tied and have split their doubleheader, the record against the #12 team will be considered. If teams are still tied, then record against the #11 team will be considered and so on until the tie is broken). Bethel would thus win the tiebreaker over the Cardinals, since they would have to sweep Carleton Monday to even be considered, while SMU split its regular-season series with the Knights.

But wait, there's more … If Saint Benedict, Saint Mary's and Bethel all finish tied, SMU would win the three-way tiebreaker — the Cardinals were 3-1 vs. tied teams, while Saint Benedict was 2-2 and Bethel was 1-3.

None of that would matter, however, had the Cardinals not taken care of business on Sunday against Saint Benedict.

The Cardinals waited until the seventh inning to lock up their Game 1 win over the Blazers, taking advantage of two CSB errors — both on the same play — to score three times and seal the win.

Erin Stenseth (Eau Claire, Wis.) and Melanie Hamilton (Homewood, Ill.) each had two hits in the opener, while Kayla Peterson (Lewiston, Minn.) scattered three hits in tossing the complete-game shutout.

Hamilton continued her torrid hitting the nightcap, going 4-for-4, and the Cardinals used a pair of big innings — a two-run third and a three-run fifth — to seal the win. Peterson, meanwhile, did her Game 1 performance one better in the nightcap tossing a complete-game two-hitter, while surrendering just a seventh-inning run.