WINONA, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University of Minnesota baseball team closes out the regular-season portion of its schedule on Sunday, hosting Bethel in a key Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference doubleheader at Max Molock Field. First pitch is slated for 1 p.m.
 
The Matchup:
• Saint Mary's Cardinals (12-6 MIAC, 24-12-1 Overall) vs. Bethel Royals (8-10 MIAC, 18-18 overall), 1 p.m.
 
GameDay Live On The Web:
• Live Stats | GameDay Program | Senior Salute
 
Last Action:
• Saint Mary's: The Cardinals locked up an MIAC Playoff berth with a pair of wins over Concordia on Wednesday in Moorhead, Minn. Saint Mary's opened with a 5-2 win, behind the pitching efforts of Steph Scatassa (Westchester, Ill.) and Nathan Mathwig (Woodbury, Minn.), while adding a 10-6 win—thanks in part to a six-run ninth inning—in the nightcap  | Recap
• Bethel: The Royals' bid for a fifth straight MIAC Playoff appearance came to an end Wednesday, as Bethel dropped a pair of games to Gustavus in St. Peter, Minn., falling 5-2 in Game 1 and 3-2 in Game 2 | Recap
 
Saint Mary's vs. Bethel—Their Last Meeting:
• May 2, 2015 * Winona, Minn.: Saint Mary's entered its Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference doubleheader against regular-season champion Bethel clinging to slim hopes of a fourth straight trip to the conference playoffs. A 7-5 Game 1 loss to the Royals, however, put those slim hopes on life support. And Bethel's back-to-back three-run innings in the seventh and eighth erased a 4-2 Saint Mary's lead as the Royals officially knocked the Cardinals out of playoff contention with an 8-5 victory in the nightcap at Winona State's Loughrey Field | Recap
  
Scouting The Saint Mary's Cardinals:
2016 Roster | 2016 Statistics | 2016 Schedule
• With their 5-2, 10-6 sweep of Concordia Wednesday, the Cardinals locked up their fourth MIAC Playoff bid in the last five years. … Saint Mary's heads into its regular-season finale against Bethel riding a seven-game winning streak—one shy of its season-high eight-game run, set during the Cardinals' spring trip to Winter Haven, Fla. … Saint Mary's has not won more than eight games in a row since winning nine straight in April, 2001. …  Saint Mary's two wins over Concordia Wednesday marked the Cardinals' fourth MIAC sweep—and fifth overall—this season. … The Cardinals have now won Game 1 in seven of their last eight doubleheaders—and 10 times in their 13 twinbills this season. … With their sweep of Concordia, Saint Mary's improved to 24-12-1—equaling their win total from a year ago, and marking the third time under coach Nick Winecke that the Cardinals have won 20 or more games. … The Cardinals' 24 wins the last two seasons are the most in a season since gong 24-11 in 1995. The last time Saint Mary's won more than 24 games was in 1993, finishing 26-6. … The Cardinals' 5-2 Game 1 win over Concordia on Wednesday snapped their 12-game losing streak against the Cobbers, and was their first win over Concordia in Moorhead, Minn., since April 14, 2001—a span of nine games. … Bob Kinne (St. Paul, Minn.) carried a hot bat against the Cobbers Wednesday, going 4-for-8 with a home run, four RBIs and two runs scored. … With his Game 2 home run against Concordia Wednesday, Kinne has now launched three home runs in his last four games—and leads the team with five round-trippers. … Kinne, who leads the team with 40 RBIs and 11 multiple-RBI games, recorded his second five-RBI effort of the season in Game 1 against Gustavus on April 6. The junior also achieved the feat against Concordia on Feb. 23. … Willie Doll (Amherst, Wis.) went 1-for-1 with four walks in Game 2 against Concordia. The four walks were the most by a Cardinal since Pat Krieger walked five times against Simpson on March 3, 2013. … Doll, who has played in all 150 games during his four-year collegiate career—including 149 starts—enters Sunday's regular-season finale against Bethel boasting a team-leading.445 batting average, while also leading the Cardinals in at-bats (137), runs (39), hits (61), total bases (86), slugging percentage (.628), and on-base percentage (.533). … Doll heads into his final four regular-season games as the Cardinals' all-time career leader in at-bats (563), runs (139), hits (209), doubles (40), total bases (301), and stolen bases (79). … Doll missed hitting for the cycle in Game 1 against Macalester on April 23 by a home run—the senior had a single, double, and triple, while also walking once, scoring four times and stealing a pair of bases. … Doll's four-hit game against Macalester on April 23 was his third of the season and sixth of his collegiate career. … Doll has scored four runs in a game twice this season—and five times in his collegiate career. … Doll's walk-off home run against Augsburg on April 21 marked the second time this season the senior has belted a game-winning home run in their last at-bat. Doll hit a three-run, game-winner against St. Olaf on April 16. … Doll's two home-run game against Augsburg was the first of his collegiate career. … Doll accounted for two of the Cardinals' five home runs against Augsburg on April 21—Cale Pieczynski (Plover, Wis.), Jake Barry (Tinley Park, Ill.), and Jake Mencacci (Wheaton, Ill.) also hit round-trippers for the Cardinals. … Along with Kinne's team-leading five home runs, the Cardinals' other 13 HRs have come from: Doll (4), Barry (4), Lursen (2), Pieczynski (1), Buerkle (1), and Jake Mencacci (Wheaton, Ill. / 1) have hit the Cardinals' other eight round-trippers. … Kinne's home run against Concordia on Feb. 23 and Mencacci's HR vs. Augsburg on April 21 were the first of their collegiate career. … Doll—who closed out the season with a team- and conference-leading 21 stolen bases a year ago, stole his 22^nd base of the season against Concordia Wednesday. Doll is just two steals shy of the single-season school record—which he set in 2014—and owns a program-record 80 steals for his four-year career. … Buerkle, who had his season-high 14-game hitting streak snapped in Game 2 against Hamline on April 12, is second to Doll in batting average (.378) and runs scored (38), while leading the team in doubles (13), triples (4) and walks (32). … Buerkle has reached base safely in 36 of the Cardinals' 37 contests this season. … Buerkle—who hit safely in 34 of 36 games a year ago—has had a hit in 32 of the Cardinals' 37 games this season, and has now collected at least one hit in 103 of the 112 games he's played in. … Buerkle has been held off the base paths just three times in 112 career contests. … Pieczynski went 5-for-6 in Saint Mary's 10-inning Game 2 loss to Hamline on April 12. It was the first five-hit game of his collegiate career. … Lursen belted a pair of home runs and drove in seven runs in the Cardinals' split against Saint John's on April 10. Lursen's ninth-inning Game 2 grand slam vs. the Johnnies was the first of his collegiate career. … The Cardinals hit a season-high four triples against Macalester on April 23. … Steph Scatassa (Westchester, Ill.) picked up his team-leading sixth pitching win of the season against Concordia on Wednesday, allowing just two runs on four hits—none after the third inning—in 6 1/3 innings. … Scatassa tossed his first complete game of the season against Carleton on April 26, hurling a five-hit shutout in the Cardinals' 2-0 Game 1 win. … Scatassa's performance against Carleton was his sixth collegiate complete game and second career shutout. … Scatassa (6-1, 2.41 ERA) has logged a team-high 59.2 innings, while Jacob Dawson (Oakdale, Minn. / 47.1 IP), Austin Jacobs (Cannon Falls, Minn. / 40.1 IP), Ben Johnson (Brooklyn Park, Minn. / 36.0 IP), Nathan Mathwig (28.0 IP), and Ryan Fejt (Westchester, Ill. / 20.2 IP) have also thrown more than 20 innings this season. … Scatassa has made a team-high 11 starts, two more than Dawson, while Mathwig and Fejt have made a team-leading 16 appearances. … Scatassa, who equaled his career high with eight strikeouts against Carleton on April 26, is the team's strikeout leader with 53. … Mathwig collected his team-leading sixth save in Game 1 against Concordia Wednesday. … Mathwig is one save shy of the single-season school record of seven, set by Tyler Krysiak in 2013. … Jacobs (3-3, 5.36 ERA) went the first eight innings in the Cardinals' Game 2 win over Macalester on April 23—it was the longest start of his collegiate career. … Jacobs recorded his first collegiate save with a perfect ninth inning in the Cardinals' 7-6 win over Cornell on March 18. … Eli Morrison (Minneapolis, Minn. / 2-1, 2.70 ERA) and Jesse Barron (Minnetonka, Minn. / 1-1, 4.38 ERA) have both notched their first collegiate pitching wins this season—Morrison's coming in a start against Houghton on Feb. 27 (4 IP, 0 R, 4 H) and Barron's coming in relief vs. Elmira on Feb. 25 (2.2 IP, 1 R, 3 H). … The Cardinals, who scored a school-record 274 runs in 2015, have plated 236 runs in 37 contests this season—including nine games of 10 or more runs. … The Cardinals have outscored their opponents 31-13 in the second. … Saint Mary's is 19-4 when scoring the game's first run. … Saint Mary's is unbeaten (19-0-1) when leading after the sixth inning. … Saint Mary's has been held to two runs or less in seven of its 12 losses this season. … The Cardinals' 10-7 Game 1 win over Gustavus on April 6 snapped their season-high five-game losing streak. … After not playing an extra-inning game in their first 25 games, the Cardinals played extra innings three times in a five-game stretch—falling to Hamline 7-6 in 10 innings on April 12, tying UW-Oshkosh 11-11 in 10 innings on April 15, and falling to Augsburg 6-5 in nine innings on April 21. … The Cardinals' 11-11, 10-inning tie against the Titans last Friday marked the second time in as many meetings that Saint Mary's and UW-Oshkosh have gone to extra innings. Saint Mary's beat UW-Oshkosh 1-0 in 14 innings in their last meeting on March 25, 2012. … The Cardinals went through a five-game stretch this season in which four games were against nationally ranked teams—No. 18 UW-La Crosse and No. 21 St. Thomas—while the other contest was vs. NCAA Division I University of Minnesota. … Saint Mary's 9-1 loss to the University of Minnesota on March 30 marked the first time the Cardinals and Gophers had squared off in program history. …  Saint Mary's March 12 twinbill against St. Scholastica marked the earliest outdoor games played at Max Molock Field in more than 20 years.
 
Scouting The Bethel Royals:
2016 Roster | 2016 Schedule | 2016 Statistics
• The Royals' two losses to Gustavus Wednesday officially eliminated them from MIAC Playoff contention. Bethel had reached the conference post-season tournament in each of the last four years—after having missed the MIAC Playoffs the previous 12 seasons. … Bethel heads into Sunday's finale at Saint Mary's have losing three straight and four of its last six. … The Royals enter Sunday's games vs. the Cardinals hitting .337 as a team, led by Bryce Marquardt (.400), Matt Conrad (.392), and Sam Horner (.379). … Along with his team-leading .400 batting average, Marquardt—one of just two Royals to start all 36 games this season—also leads the Royals in at-bats (150), runs (38), and hits (60). … Conrad owns team-highs in doubles (11), RBIs (36), total bases (73), slugging percentage (.562), and on-base percentage (.445). … Cocrad and Bret Neuville (.368) share the team lead with three home runs each. … Marquardt has accounted for 10 of the Royals' 21 stolen bases this season. … Marquardt has put together a team-leading 20 multiple-hit games—including three four-hit contests—while Conrad has amassed 10 multiple-RBI games. … Conrad and Marquardt own hitting streaks of 13 and 12 games, respectively, but no Royal has an active hit streak of more than two games. … Bethel boasts three pitchers who have logged 40 or more innings this season—Tyler Heitmann (59.1 IP), Matt Herringshaw (45.1 IP), and Houston Droel (44.1 IP). … Heitmann (4-4, 4.70) is the team-leader in wins (4) and starts (9), while Michael Bohlke (3-2, 4.24 ERA) has made a team-high 15 appearances. … Carson Selin has collected two of the Royals' three saves this season, while Droel (3-3, 3.86 ERA) has the other. … Heitmann has fanned a team-best 57 batters, with Droel second with 35 strikeouts. … Bethel has scored 10 or more runs eight times this season, including a season-high 17-run effort in a 17-3 win over Concordia in Game 2 on April 6.