CLERMONT, Fla. — After riding their offense to seven victories in their first eight games this season, the Saint Mary's University of Minnesota fastpitch softball team relied on its defense to secure win No. 8.
Clinging to a 3-0 lead and facing a bases-loaded no out jam in the top of the seventh, the Cardinals promptly turned their first triple play in more than a decade in beating Rose-Hulman 3-0.
In their second game of the day, the Cardinals' high-powered offense was silenced through the game's first five innings, as Saint Mary's closed out its 10-game spring trip with a 4-2 loss to Neumann.
The Cardinals scored all the runs their would need against Rose-Hulman in the second inning, when
Mariah Harper (Schaumburg, Ill.)—named MIAC Athlete of the Week earlier in the day—delivered a two-run double to put Saint Mary's out front, 2-0.
Saint Mary's added another run in the third on a wild pitch—and with
Ashley Betzold (Farmington, Minn.) in the pitcher's circle, three runs was more than enough.
Betzold picked up her fifth win of the season, tossing a complete-game three-hitter—and taking full advantage of the Cardinals'
Brittney Birkhauser (Wisconsin Rapids, Wis.)-to-
Tessa Kuschke (Grant, Minn.)-to-
Gabby Geissler (St. Louis, Mo.) game-ending triple play.
Offensively, the Cardinals tagged Rose-Hulman pitcher Taylor Lockhart for 11 hits—including a 3-for-3 showing from Kuschke, and two hits each from Harper, Betzold, and
Kathi Opsahl (Elk River, Minn.).
Saint Mary's could have used a few of those 11 Game 1 hits in the nightcap, as Neumann pitcher Haley Broomell limited the Cardinals to just six hits.
Neumann scored all of its runs in the second inning, parlaying five hits into four runs to grab what turned out to ben an insurmountable 4-0 advantage. Saint Mary's cut the game to two, 4-2, with a pair of runs in the sixth—the first on a
Stanzy Snyder (Johnston, Iowa) groundout and the second on a Neumann error—but that was as close as the Cardinals would get.
Birkhauser and Harper each had two hits, while Snyder and Opsahl accounted for the other two.
Abbey Killian (Fountain City, Wis.) suffered the pitching loss, giving up four runs on nine hits in four innings.
Amber Trendle (Chicago, Ill.) threw two innings of scoreless, one-hit relief.
The Cardinals (8-2 overall) return to action March 4-5, squaring off against the University of Dubuque, UW-River Falls, Martin Luther, and Millikin at the Rochester Dome in Rochester, Minn.
