MOORHEAD, Minn. — Scoring first certainly wasn't the issue for the Saint Mary's University of Minnesota baseball team Tuesday afternoon, as the Cardinals scored the game's opening run of both of its Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference contests against Concordia.
 
Holding that lead, however, was a completely different story.
 
The Cardinals struck first—and last—in the opener, scoring a single run in the top of the second, and twice more in the top of the seventh. Problem was, what came in between those two innings were seven Cobber runs—fueled by a four-run fourth inning—as Concordia earned the Game 1 victory, 7-3.
 
And it was more of the same in Game 2, as the Cardinals' Ben Buerkle (Roseville, Minn.) blasted a first-inning home run, his second of the day, only to have Concordia answer with three runs in the bottom of the first—and outscore Saint Mary's 11-8 over the game's final eight innings to complete the sweep with a 14-9 Game 2 victory.
 
With the losses the Cardinals fall to 9-7 in conference play and drop to fifth in the conference standings, one game behind Concordia and St. Thomas—who are clinging to the final two MIAC Playoff berths, sitting tied for third with identical 10-6 records—with two conference games left. Saint Mary's closes out its regular-season conference schedule on Sunday, hosting league-leading Bethel (13-3)—which has already locked up at least a share of the regular-season title—in a 1 p.m. doubleheader at Max Molock Field.
 
"The biggest difference today was, (Concordia) got big hit after big hit, and we just couldn't come through when we really needed to," said Saint Mary's coach Nick Winecke. "Give Concordia credit, they were really mashing baseballs today.
 
"Offensively, we weren't that bad—it's just that the key hits weren't there."
 
A.J. Redders (Middleton, Wis.) got things rolling for the Cardinals, delivering a two-out RBI single to score Drew Denning (St. Paul, Minn.).
 
Concordia answered with a pair of runs in its half of the second, before padding its lead to 6-1 with four runs in the fourth—all with two outs, and highlighted by Eric Carlsen's two-run home run.
 
The Cobbers would add one more run in the sixth, before Saint Mary's mounted a late-game rally, cutting the gap to four, 7-3 on Ben Buerkle's (Roseville, Minn.) third hit of the game—a two-run, two-out home run—but CC pitcher Ross Merriman induced Jon Schlemmer (De Pere, Wis.) to fly out to left to end the threat.
 
Buerkle finished Game 1 3-for-4 with a pair of RBIs, while David Barry (Apple Valley, Minn.) collected two hits, and Redders, Denning, and Schlemmer accounted for the Cardinals' other three hits.
 
Buerkle followed up his seventh-inning home run in his final at-bat of the opener with his second round-tripper of the afternoon—in his first at-bat in Game 2—to give Saint Mary's another early 1-0 lead.
 
But just like in Game 1, the Cobbers quickly answered, scoring three times in the bottom of the first and twice more in the third to grab a 4-1 advantage.
 
Buerkle led off the Cardinal fourth with a double and scored on a Schlemmer RBI single to make it 4-2, but again the Cobbers had answer—this time plating five runs in the bottom of the fourth to make it 9-2.
 
A Tyler Lursen (Maple Grove, Minn.) RBI double in the sixth and a two-run Doll home run in the seventh cut the Concordia gap to 9-5, but … you guessed it … the Cobbers answered with their second five-run inning of the game to push the lead back to seven, 14-5.
 
Kevin Miley (St. Paul, Minn.) and Lursen belted back-to-back solo home runs in the eighth, and a Schlemmer sacrifice fly and a Lursen RBI single plated to more Cardinal runs in the ninth, but it was too little, too late, as Saint Mary's dropped back-to-back games for just the second time this season.
 
Lursen went 3-for-5 with three RBIs to pace the Cardinals' 11-hit Game 2 offensive attack, while Doll and Buerkle each had two hits. Buerkle also scored three times, with Doll and Schlemmer collecting two RBIs apiece.