WINONA, Minn. — The last time the Saint Mary's University of Minnesota and UW-Oshkosh baseball team squared off, it took 14 innings before the Cardinals would score the game's first run in a 1-0 victory.
Friday afternoon, the two teams were at it again, only this time, there was no shortage of offensive fireworks, as the two teams combined to score 22 runs.
And even extra innings could not decide a winner.
UW-Oshkosh scored three runs in the top of the ninth inning—after Saint Mary's had plated five runs in the bottom of the eighth to take an 11-8 lead—and after a scoreless 10th, the game was halted, deadlocked at 11-11, on account of darkness.
After spotting the Titans a 3-0 lead on a first-inning sacrifice fly and back-to-back RBI groundouts in the second and third, the Cardinals' offense came to life in the third, getting RBI singles from
Willie Doll (Amherst, Wis.) and
Cale Pieczynski (Plover, Wis.) to cut the UW-Oshkosh lead to one, 3-2.
The one-run deficit quickly ballooned back to three, as the Titans answered the Cardinals' two-run third with two runs of their own in the fourth to make it a 5-2 UW-Oshkosh advantage.
An advantage that didn't even last one-half inning, as the Cardinals scored three times in the bottom of the fourth, highlighted by RBI singles from Doll—his third hit in as many at-bats—and
Joe Seegers (Oconomowoc, Wis.) to knot the game at 5-5.
Saint Mary's grabbed its first lead, 6-5, in the bottom of the fifth, as
Ben Buerkle (Roseville, Minn.) led off with a walk, moved to third on a
Tyler Lursen (Maple Grove, Minn.) single and scored when the Titans turned a 6-4-3 double play.
The Cardinals maintained that one-run lead until the eighth, when Johnny Eagan belted an
R.J. Brown (Broadview, Ill.) offering over the fence in right-center for a three-run home run—and an 8-6 UW-Oshkosh lead.
Unfazed by the turn of events, the Cardinals turned that two-run deficit into an 11-8 lead in their half of the eighth.
Two hit batsmen sandwiched around a walk to Seegers loaded the bases with one out for the Cardinals. Pieczynski and Buerkle both delivered RBI singles to tie the game at 8-8, and, after a sacrifice fly by Lursen gave Saint Mary's a 9-8 lead,
Bob Kinne (St. Paul, Minn.) blasted a two-run triple to right to push the Cardinal lead to three, 11-8.
In an game in which no lead was safe, the Titans returned the favor in the top of the ninth, getting a three-run home run from Noah Polcyn to knot the game at 11-11.
Saint Mary's threatened to end it in the bottom of the ninth, getting singles by Seegers and Doll to put runners on first and third with two out, but could not get Seegers home from third—sending the game into extra innings.
Doll finished 4-for-5 with a pair of RBIs and a run scored to pace the Cardinals' 15-hit attack, while Kinne was 3-for-5 with 2 RBIs, and Pieczynski, Lursen, and Seegers all had two hits. Seegers also scored three runs and Pieczynski had two RBIs.
The Cardinals (15-11-1 overall) return to Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference play on Saturday, traveling to Northfield, Minn., for a 1 p.m. doubleheader against St. Olaf.
