By Donny Nadeau
Saint Mary's Sports Information Director
 
NORTHFIELD, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University of Minnesota baseball team had so much fun playing a Game 1 nailbiter on Saturday, they decided to try and duplicate the feat on Sunday.
 
Less than 24 hours after getting a walk-off home run by Will Matthews (Geneva, Ill.) in the bottom of the seventh inning of their 3-2 win over Hamline Saturday, the Cardinals found themselves deadlocked with St. Olaf 8-8 heading into the eighth inning.
 
And while it wasn't another walk-off win, it was a win just the same, as Saint Mary's erupted for three runs in the top of the eighth—and Nathan Mathwig (Woodbury, Minn.) completed 2 1/3 innings of one-hit, scoreless relief with a strikeout and 6-4-3 double play—to record an 11-8 victory.
 
The Cardinals picked up right where they left off in the nightcap, scoring four runs in the top of the first inning and scoring in double digits for a second straight game, beating the Oles 10-4.
 
The two teams traded runs in the second inning—the Cardinals' coming on a Connor Cornell (Plymouth, Minn.) ground out—and Saint Mary's grabbed a brief, 2-1 lead on Cornell's second RBI of the game, this one a double to left center to score Matthews.
 
St. Olaf, however, exploded for six runs in the fourth inning to take a 7-2 advantage.
 
The Cardinals had an answer—make that three answers.
 
Saint Mary's put together three, three-run innings—one in the fifth, one in the sixth, and one in the eighth—and held St. Olaf to just a single, fifth-inning run over the final four innings to record the victory.
 
Matthews and Joe Seegers (Oconomowoc, Wis.) each had three hits—while Justin Weinberg (Eagan, Minn.) and Jake Barry (Tinley Park, Ill.) both scored three times—to pace the Cardinals' Game 1 offensive attack.
 
Mathwig picked up the pitching win, coming on with two outs in the bottom of ht e sixth and limiting the Oles to just an eighth-inning single—while striking out two and walking one.
 
Saint Mary's gave Game 2 starter Jonathan Cieminski (Fountain City, Wis.) plenty of run support, jumping out to a 4-0 lead after its first at-bat—highlighted by a two-run double from Matthews and a run-scoring single by Dixon Irwin (Plover, Wis.).
 
A sacrifice fly by Andy Tepp (Stevens Point, Wis.) in the second inning pushed the Cardinals' lead to 5-0, only to have St. Olaf get one back in the bottom of the third.
 
Matthew Piechowski's (Hutchinson, Minn.) sacrifice fly and an infield single from Tepp made it 7-1 in the fourth, but the Oles would not go down without a fight, scoring three times in the fifth to cut the Cardinal lead to 7-4.
 
Run-scoring triples by Piechowski and Seegers—along with Tepp's second sacrifice fly of the contest— in the sixth accounted for the Cardinals' final three runs.
 
Joey Costello (Victoria, Minn.) went 3-for-4 with two runs scored, and Seegers, Irwin, and Piechowski each chipped in a pair of hits in the nightcap.
 
Cieminski went the first five innings, allowing four runs—three earned—on six hits, while striking out four. Tyler Stilp (Lindstrom, Minn.) allowed one hit in the sixth, and Jacob Taschetta (Winfield, Ill.) surrendered one hi in the ninth.
 
The Cardinals (13-7 MIAC, 19-16 overall) will open post-season play on Thursday at CHS Field in St. Paul, Minn. Game time and opponent will be determined following the completion of the MIAC's regular-season schedule on Monday.