By
DONNY NADEAU
Saint Mary's Sports Information Director
CLERMONT, Fla. — Two days ago, the Saint Mary's University of Minnesota fastpitch softball team kicked off its two-game day riding the right-arm of
Amber Trendle (Chicago, Ill.) to a 1-0 victory over Rose-Hulman.
After an off-day, the Cardinals were back on the diamond on Wednesday, and they once again kicked off their day with a 1-0 decision.
Unfortunately — despite the stellar, four-hit pitching performance of
Amber Chow (West St. Paul, Minn.) — this time around the one-run decision did not go in the Cardinals' favor, as Hanover scored the game's only run with two out in the bottom of the seventh inning in beating Saint Mary's 1-0.
Saint Mary's second game of the day proved to be another late-inning nailbiter — and another heartbreaking loss for the Cardinals.
Milwaukee School of Engineering scored a pair of runs in the top of the seventh inning to rally from a two-run deficit and send the game into extra innings. And the Raiders continued their late-game offensive onslaught, scoring a solo run in the top of the eighth and three more in the top of the ninth to deal the Cardinals an 8-6 setback.
The Cardinals put a runner on base in five of the seven innings in their opener against Hanover — but could not manufacture a run.
Justine Schultz (Winona, Minn.) — who had two of the Cardinals' four hits — opened the game with a double and moved to third on a wild pitch, but was left stranded, as Hanover pitcher Lilly Beurman worked out of the jam with a pair of strikeouts and pop-out to short.
It would be the only time the Cardinals would get a runner to third base off Beurman, who matched Chow with her own complete-game four-hitter.
Hanover threatened in the third, loading the bases with two outs, only to have Chow induce Beurman to fly out to center to end the threat. The Panthers finally scratched across a run in the bottom of the seventh when Shelby Eding laced a two-out Chow offering into left field, scoring Macknezie Smith from second with the game's only run.
Along with Schultz's two hits,
Hallie Schmeling (Onalaska, Wis.) and
Marissa Kleckler (Oregon, Wis.) accounted for the Cardinals' other two runs. Chow did not allow more than one hit in any inning en route to her complete-game four-hitter. She walked two and struck out one.
The Cardinals scoreless streak continued in their second game of the day against MSOE, as the Raiders held Saint Mary's without a run through their first two at-bats — and plated single runs in both the second and third innings — before the Cardinals finally got their offense shifted out of neutral.
Saint Mary's cut the Raiders' lead to one, 2-1 on a Schultz sacrifice fly to score
Amy Kulaga (Riverside, Ill.) in the third, and knotted the game at 2-2 in the fourth on back-to-back doubles by Chow and Kleckler.
The Cardinals rode the momentum to their first lead of the game in the fifth, as they loaded the bases with singles by
Roni Stevens (Delano, Minn.), Schultz, and Schmeling, before
Tara Nikolich (Chicago, Ill.) delivered their fourth hit of the inning — a two-run single — to put Saint Mary's in front, 4-2.
Saint Mary's would cling to that two-run advantage until the seventh, when MSOE took advantage of a pair of Cardinal errors to score two runs and knot the game at 4-4.
Saint Mary's threatened in the bottom of the seventh, loading the bases on a lead-off walk to
DeJaye Baab (Wabasha, Minn.), a one-out single by Schmeling, and a two-out walk to Chow, only to have MSOE reliever Lorri Pondo wiggle out of the jam with a ground-out to second — sending the game into extra innings.
And what an extra-inning offensive display it proved to be.
MSOE scored once in the top of the eighth, only to have the Cardinals answer with a solo run in their half of the inning — getting a sacrifice fly from Stevens to score Kleckler.
The Raiders used a pair of doubles to plate three runs in their half of the ninth to take an 8-5 advantage, and the Cardinals could only muster a run-scoring sacrifice fly by Schmeling in falling for the second time on the day.
Nikolich, Schultz, and Schmeling all recorded two-hit games against MSOE, with Nikolich also driving in a pair of runs.
The Cardinals are back in action on Thursday, squaring off against Capital at 9:30 a.m. (EST), before getting a rematch with Hanover at noon (EST).
