ARDEN HILLS, Minn. — Saint Mary's University of Minnesota baseball coach Nick Winecke was hoping his Cardinals would close out the regular-season with a bang Sunday afternoon against Bethel.
 
The regular-season ended with a bang all right—unfortunately, it was the Royals doing most of the banging
 
Bethel erupted for a combined eight runs in their final three at-bats in breaking open a one-run game and leading the Royals to an 11-2 victory in the opener, before scoring three times with two outs in the bottom of the ninth—on a pair of bases-loaded hit batsmen and a Cardinal throwing error—to complete the sweep with a 6-5 win in the nightcap.
 
The Cardinals surrendered a run in the bottom of the first inning in the opener, but got that run right back in the second, as Jake Barry (Tinley Park, Ill.) opened the inning with a double and scored on Justin Weinberg's (Eagan, Minn.) RBI single.
 
The Royals regained the advantage with a pair of runs in the bottom of the second, and, after Saint Mary's plated its second run of the game on a Barry sacrifice fly in the third, Bethel scored eight unanswered runs—two in the fourth, five in the fifth, and one more in the sixth—to seal the Game 1 victory.
 
Joey Costello (Victoria, Minn.) was a perfect 3-for-3 at the plate to lead the Cardinals'' nine-hit offensive attack in the opener, while Bob Kinne (St. Paul, Min.) added two hits, and Barry, Weinberg, Joe Seegers (Oconomowoc, Wis.), and Connor Christenson (Lakeville, Minn.) all chipped in one.
 
The Cardinals kicked their offense into high gear early in the nightcap, scoring twice in each of their first two at-bats to grab an early 4-1 lead.
 
Ben Buerkle (Roseville, Minn.) launched a lead-off home run and Weinberg's RBI single drove in Seegers in the first, while Kinne cracked a run-scoring single and Barry delivered an RBI double in the second to give Saint Mary's the early, 4-1 advantage.
 
Saint Mary's pushed its lead to 5-1 in the sixth, when Buerkle laced a two-out double and scored one batter later on Seegers' RBI single to right. The Royals cut the deficit to two, 5-3, with a pair of runs in the bottom of the sixth, and completed the comeback in the bottom of the ninth on back-to-back, bases-loaded, two-out hit batsmen and a Cardinal throwing error to secure the win—and claim a share of the regular-season conference title.
 
Kinne collected three hits in his final game in a Cardinal uniform in Game 2, while Buerkle and Seegers each added two hits. Buerkle also scored three times and had an RBI for Saint Mary's.
 
The Cardinals close out the season with a 19-20 overall record, including a 9-11 mark in conference play. Bethel, meanwhile, improved to 31-8 overall and 16-5 in the MIAC. With the sweep, the Royals moved into a first-place tie with St. Thomas, and earned the MIAC Playoffs' No. 1 seed heading to Thursday's opening round of the double-elimination conference tournament.