By
DONNY NADEAU
Saint Mary's Sports Information Director
AUBURNDALE, Fla. — Just a day after scoring a combined 24 runs in their first two games of their spring trip on Sunday, the Saint Mary's University of Minnesota baseball team pick up right where it left off.
Coming off an 11-1 win over Cabrini and a 13-8 victory against Milwaukee School of Engineering, the Cardinals got two more shots at the Raiders in a nonconference doubleheader on Monday — and the Cardinals once against feasted on MSOE pitching.
Saint Mary's banged out 10 hits and scored four of its five runs in the first two innings in beating the Raiders 5-3 in Game 1. The Cardinals completed the sweep in convincing fashion — recording a second-straight 10-hit attack in rolling to a 10-2 victory.
The Cardinals used the quick-strike approach in winning Game 1, putting together back-to-back two-run innings in their first two at-bats.
Will Matthews (Geneva, Ill.) delivered an RBI single and
Dirk Drohner (Plover, Wis.) lifted a sacrifice fly to account for the Cardinals' two first-inning runs, while
Matthew Piechowski (Hutchinson, Minn.) drove in both second-inning runs with a two-out single to left — scoring both
Joey Costello (Victoria, Minn.) and
Dixon Irwin (Red Wing, Minn.) to give Saint Mary's a 4-0 advantage.
MSOE cut the deficit to 4-3 with two runs in the top of the third and another in the fifth, but Saint Mary's got an RBI triple from Matthews in the bottom of the fifth to ice the win.
Matthews,
Andy Tepp (Stevens Point, Wis.), and Piechowski, who belted his first collegiate home run — a grand slam against Cabrini Sunday — all had two hits in the opener, with Piechowski and Matthews also each driving in a pair of runs.
Eli Morison (Minneapolis, Minn.) picked up the pitching win, going 4 2/3 innings, allowing three runs on two hits, while
Jake Kramlinger (White Bear Lake, Minn.) collected the save with two innings of shutout relief.
MSOE jumped out to a 2-0 lead with solo runs in the bottom of the first and second innings in the nightcap.
That, however, would be the last time the Raiders would cross home plate — and the Cardinals were just getting warmed up.
Saint Mary's cut the deficit to 2-1 when Weinberg scored on a wild pitch in the third, and the Cardinals took the lead for good in the fourth, plating five runs on five hits — two coming on RBI doubles by Irwin and Weinberg, and the other three coming on a bases-loaded double by Matthews.
Piechowski induced a bases-loaded walk and Tepp laced a two-run single to left as the Cardinals pushed their lead to 9-2 in the fifth, and Irwin's RBI single in the sixth rounded out the scoring.
Weinberg, Tepp, Irwin, and
Liam Belleveau (Middleton, Wis.) all had two hits — Belleveau's both triples, the first two three-baggers of his collegiate career — while Matthews drove in three runs and Tepp and Irwin each chipped in two RBIs.
Luke Gilbertson (Windom, Minn.) picked up his first collegiate pitching win in his first collegiate start, allowing two runs — one earned — on four hits in four innings of work.
Kodey Kiel (Owatonna, Minn.) blanked the Raiders on one hit in the two innings of relief, with
Tyler Stilp (Lindstrom, Minn.) working a one-hit seventh.
The Cardinals (4-0 overall) are back in action on Tuesday, squaring off against Rose-Hulman in a nine-inning contest slated for a 4 p.m. EST start.
