WINONA, Minn. — The calendar may have said April 1, but the Saint Mary's University of Minnesota baseball team was not fooling around during Game 1 of their Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference doubleheader against Hamline.
 
Saint Mary's erupted for 20 runs—including 10 in the bottom of the first inning—as the Cardinals rolled to a 20-2 victory over the visiting Pipers at Max Molock Field.
 
Unfortunately for the Cardinals, the Pipers decided to pull a little April Fool's prank of their own in the nightcap, rallying from a 4-0 deficit with 12 runs over the game's final six innings in dropping Saint Mary's 12-7.
 
The Cardinals put Game 1 out of reach early, sending 13 batters to the plate en route to their 10-run first inning, before adding five runs in the third and five more in the fifth.
 
Jon Schlemmer (De Pere, Wis.) swung the hot bat for the Cardinals in the opener, as the senior made three plate appearances in the first three innings—including two in the first inning alone—and was a perfect 3-for-3 with a whopping seven RBIs.
 
Schlemmer drove in four of the Cardinals' 10 runs in the first inning, delivering a pair of two-run singles, while Willie Doll (Amherst, Wis.) added a pair of first-inning singles.
 
And the senior designated hitter was at it again in the third, blasting a three-run double, as Saint Mary's pushed its lead to 15-0.
 
Hamline foiled Cardinal starter Ben Johnson's (Brooklyn Park, Minn.) shutout bid with a pair of runs in the fourth, but Saint Mary's took advantage of five fifth-inning walks—four with two outs—in recording its second five-run inning of the afternoon and seal the lopsided Game 1 victory.
 
Schlemmer, Doll, and David Barry (Apple Valley, Minn.) all finished with three hits in the opener, while Ben Buerkle (Roseville, Minn.) and Drew Denning (St. Paul, Minn.) each chipped in a pair of hits. Eleven different players drove in at least one run—highlighted by Schlemmer's seven-RBI effort.
 
Johnson picked up his second win of the season, allowing two runs on six hits in five innings of work. Austin Jacobs (Cannon Falls, Minn.) and Jake Merkle (Mahtomedi, Minn.) each worked an inning of scoreless relief.
 
The Cardinals picked up right where they left off to open the second game, scoring a pair of runs in both the first and second innings to grab a 4-0 lead.
 
Hamline knotted the game at 4-4 with a four-run fourth, then took advantage of a pair of Saint Mary's errors to take its first lead of the afternoon, 5-4, in the fifth. HU erupted for five runs in the seventh—highlighted by a Tyler Summers' grand slam home run—and tacked on two more runs in the top of the ninth to push its lead to 12-4.
 
The Cardinals got three runs back in their final at-bat on RBI singles by Buerkle, Schlemmer and Tyler Lursen (Maple Grove, Minn.), but it was too little too late, as the Pipers held on to earn the conference split.
 
Schlemmer closed out his amazing 6-for-9, nine RBI effort by going 3-for-5 with two RBIs and two runs scored in the nightcap, while Lursen also added three hits in five at-bats, as the duo accounted for six of the team's 10 Game 2 hits.
 
The Cardinals (2-2 MIAC, 14-5 overall) hit the road on Saturday, heading to Collegeville, Minn., for a 1 p.m. conference doubleheader against Saint John's.