WINONA, Minn. — There's something about playing Concordia that brings out the best in Saint Mary's University of Minnesota's Ashley Betzold (Farmington, Minn.).
 
A year after limiting the Cobbers to just one run over 14 innings in the Cardinal fastpitch softball team's split, the Cardinal junior was at it again Saturday afternoon.
 
This time around, she mowed down the Cobbers in record-setting fashion.
 
Betzold struck out a career-high 11 batters en route to her school-record 53^rd complete-game—a four-hit shutout in leading Saint Mary's to a 3-0 Game 1 victory at the Saint Mary's Field.
 
And Betzold pushed that school-record complete game mark to 54 in Game 2—but this time around, she had a lot more offensive support.
 
Brittney Birkhauser (Wisconsin Rapids, Wis.) completed a 4-for-5, three-home run, four-RBI afternoon by going 2-for-2 with HR No. 3 and a pair of runs batted in,  leading the Cardinals to a sweep-clinching 10-3 victory in the nightcap.
 
Betzold, who had struck out a then-career-best 10 batters three times—including once against Concordia—fanned two batters in each of the first four innings in the opener, before striking out three, and not allowing a hit, over the game's final three innings.
 
And while the junior was doing her part with her right arm, Birkhauser was doing her's with her bat—belting a pair of solo home runs in the fourth and sixth innings to help seal the Game 1 victory.
 
The Cardinals opened the scoring in the second, getting a two-out, RBI single by Kali Aldrich (Rochester, Minn.) that scored Betzold, who had led off the inning with a four-pitch walk.
 
From there, it was Birkhauser who proved all the offensive support, as the sophomore launched her third home run of the season to lead off the fourth, then followed that up with HR No. 4 to open the sixth.
 
Birkhauser—who became the first Cardinal to hit two home runs in game since Alex Raske hit two against Saint Benedict on April 14, 2013—and Stanzy Snyder (Johnston, Iowa) paced the Cardinals' five-hit attack, collecting two hits each, while Aldrich had the other.
 
 
The Cardinals struck in their first at-bat in the nightcap, as Snyder and Mariah Harper (Schaumburg, Ill.) drew back-to-back walks, with Snyder scoring on Kathi Opsahl's (Elk River, Minn.) two-out double to left for a 1-0 Saint Mary's lead.
 
After nine scoreless innings, Concordia finally got to Betzold in the third, as Kayla Nack launched a two-run home run to center to give the Cobbers a 2-1 lead.
 
A brief, 2-1 lead—thanks to Birkhauser.
 
Birkhauser hammered an Abigail Heraldson offering over the leftfield fence for her third home run of the afternoon—a two-run shot in the third—as the Cardinals regained the lead, 3-2.
 
The Game 2 home run parade continued, as Nicole Johannes pulled the Cobbers even, 3-3, with a solo shot to lead off the top fourth, but the Cardinals answered in their half of the inning, scoring twice—the first on an RBI single by Snyder and the other on a Cobber wild pitch—to regain the lead, 5-3.
 
Saint Mary's added two more runs in the fifth—both with two outs—as Katie Ehlenfeldt (Beaver Dam, Wis.), Tessa Kuschke (Grant, Minn.), Toni Hunsinger (Farmington, Minn.), and Snyder strung together four straight singles to make it 7-3 Cardinals.
 
Seniors took center stage in the Cardinals' three-run sixth, as Katie Krull (Rochester, Minn.) and Ehlenfeldt—who, along with Harper, were playing their final collegiate home games—delivered an RBI double and two-run single, respectively, to close out the scoring.
 
Snyder, Birkhauser and Ehlenfeldt all finished with two hits and two RBIs, while Kuschke also added a pair of hits to pace the Cardinals' 13-hit attack. Betzold completed her 14-inning afternoon tossing a five-hitter in Game 2, striking out four more Cobber batters, while walking two.
 
The Cardinals (9-11 MIAC, 20-16 overall) close out their 2016 regular-season schedule on Tuesday with a conference doubleheader against Augsburg at a site yet to be determined.