WINONA, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University of Minnesota fastpitch softball team got offensive—and defensive—in posting a key Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference sweep of Macalester Sunday afternoon at the Saint Mary's Field.
 
The Cardinals scored eight runs—more runs than they had plated in their last seven games combined—in posted an 8-5 win over the Scots in Game 1, before riding the right arm of pitcher Ashley Betzold (Farmington, Minn.) to a 1-0 victory in the nightcap.
 
The two teams traded first-inning runs in the opener—the Cardinals' coming on an RBI single by Betzold The Scots tacked on two more runs in the top of the second—but the Cardinals did their guest one better in the bottom half of the inning, as an RBI double by Toni Hunsinger (Farmington, Minn.) and a run-scoring single by Stanzy Snyder (Johnston, Iowa) highlighted a three-run frame that gave Saint Mary's a 4-3 advantage.
 
An advantage they would not relinquish.
 
Betzold, Kathi Opsahl (Elk River, Minn.), and Allie Borawski (Stickney, Ill.) all drove in runs in the fourth, as the Cardinals pushed their lead to five, 8-3. Macalester scored two runs in the fifth to make it an 8-5 game, but Betzold mowed the Scots down in the sixth and seventh to notch the complete-game win.
 
Borawski went 3-for-4 and Snyder was 2-for-4, as the duo accounted for five of the Cardinals' eight Game 1 hits. Betzold picked up the pitching win, allowing five runs—three of which were earned—while striking out three.
 
After scattering 13 Scot hits in the opener, Betzold was virtually untouchable in Game 2, allowing just three hits—one in the first, one in the sixth, and one in the seventh—while striking out two and not walking a batter en route to her 12^th win of the season and 15^th complete game.
 
The Cardinals finally broke a scoreless deadlock in the fifth, loading the bases with one out—sandwiching singles by Aldrich and Snyder around a Scot error. Mariah Harper (Schaumburg, Ill.) delivered a single to center to score one, but pinch-runner Katie Ehlenfeldt (Beaver Dam, Wis.) was thrown out at the plate for the second out, and Scot pitcher Sophie Migacz got Brittney Birkhauser (Wisconsin Rapids, Wis.) to ground out back to the mound to end the threat.
 
Snyder picked up her second straight two-hit game in the nightcap, going 2-for-4, while Saint Mary's other four hits came from Harper, Birkhauser, Opsahl, and Aldrich.
 
The Cardinals (5-7 MIAC, 16-12 overall) are back on the road on Tuesday, traveling to Ona Orth Athletic Complex in Arden Hills, Minn., for a 3:30 p.m. conference doubleheader against Bethel.