WINONA, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University of Minnesota fastpitch softball team was in a foul mood when they took the field for Saturday's Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference doubleheader against Augsburg.
 
Managing just four runs—including three on a walk-off, seventh-inning home run off the bat of Ashley Betzold (Farmington, Minn.)—Friday against St. Olaf will do that to a team.
 
And coming up empty in a 3-0 loss to Augsburg in the opening game of their conference twinbill Saturday certainly didn't help matters, either.
 
Fortunately for the Cardinals, there was some late-inning magic in Game 2.
 
Saint Mary's, held scoreless for the first three innings of the second game, rallied from a 4-0 deficit—getting a walk-off RBI single from Allie Borawski (Stickney, Ill.) with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning—as the Cardinals salvaged a split with a 5-4 victory.
 
Betzold did her part in the opener, as the Cardinal starting pitcher limited Augburg to just three hits, while striking out a season high nine batters.
 
Unfortunately, one of those hits was a first-inning, two-run home run off the bat of Jacquline Nichols that gave Augsburg a 3-0 advantage. The Auggies would add an unearned insurance run in the fifth, and Augsburg pitcher Lindsay Helbach tossed the complete-game shutout.
 
Kathi Opsahl (Elk River, Minn.) and Mariah Harper (Schaumburg, Ill.) each had two hits to account for four of the Cardinals' six Game 1 hits.
 
Things didn't start out quite the way the Cardinals had hoped in the nightcap, either, as Augsburg scored once and had the bases loaded with no one out in the top of the first against Game 2 starter Katie Homan (North Mankato, Minn.).
 
Enter Betzold.
 
The sophomore right-hander worked out the bases-loaded jam and scattered just five hits over the final seven innings to earn her team-leading ninth win.
 
The Auggies pushed their advantage to 4-0 with a three-run fourth, but the Cardinal offense finally showed some signs of life in the bottom half of the inning, getting a pair of runs—one on an Augsburg error and the other on a Brittney Birkhauser (Wisconsin Rapids, Wis.) RBI single—to cut the deficit to 4-2.
 
Birkhauser delivered her second run-scoring single of the game in the sixth to make it a one-run game, 4-3—and set up the Cardinals' seventh-inning heroics.
 
Alex Raske (Chicago, Ill.) was hit by a pitch to open the inning, was sacrificed to second and scored on Betzold's RBI double to deep left. A walk and a groundout put runners on second and third, and Borawski delivered a slicing liner that Augsburg leftfielder Brenna Cline could not get to, scoring pinch-runner Molly Urban (Roseville, Minn.) with the game-winning run.
 
Opsahl picked up her second straight two-hit game, while Birkhauser went 2-for-3 with a pair of RBIs.
 
The Cardinals, who went 16 consecutive doubleheaders without a split prior to Friday's 3-1 win, 4-1 loss to St. Olaf—and have now split back-to-back twinbills—are back in action on Tuesday, traveling to St. Joseph, Minn., for a 3:30 p.m. conference DH against Saint Benedict.