By DONNY NADEAU
Saint Mary's Sports Information Director
 
CLERMONT, Fla. — After dropping a pair of late-inning heartbreakers against Hanover and Milwaukee School of Engineering the previous day, the Saint Mary's
University of Minnesota fastpitch softball team made it look easy as 1-2-3 in its first game of the day Thursday against Capital.
 
The Cardinals used three one-run innings — scoring in the third, fourth, and fifth innings — in dealing the Crusaders a 3-1 setback.
 
In Saint Mary's second game of the day, the Cardinals earned a bit of revenge in their rematch with Hanover.
 
After failing to plate a run against Hanover in their first meeting on Wednesday — falling 1-0 — the Cardinals broke through in a big way, erupting for a season-high 11 run in beating the Panthers 11-3 in game decided in the fifth inning by the eight-run rule.
 
Saint Mary's broke a scoreless deadlock against Capital in the third inning, as Justine Schultz (Winona, Minn.) singled to score Roni Stevens. The Cardinals pushed the advantage to 2-0 on an RBI single by Marissa Kleckler (Oregon, Wis.) in the fourth, and tacked on a third run thanks to a Hallie Schmeling (Onalaska, Wis.) run-scoring single in the fifth.
 
Capital got one run back in the bottom of the sixth, and threatened again in the seventh — putting runners on second and third with two outs — but Cardinal hurler Amber Chow (West St. Paul, Minn.) got Morgan Fadel to fly out to center to end the threat, and the game.
 
Schultz, Schmeling, Roni Stevens (Delano, Minn.), and DeJaye Baab (Wabasha, Minn.) all had two hits for the Cardinals, while Chow tossed her third consecutive complete game — allowing just the one run on eight hits, with two walks and one strikeout.
 
Saint Mary's spotted Hanover a 2-0, first inning lead in its second game of the day.
 
The Panthers' lead did not last long, however, as the Cardinals put together back-to-back two-run innings in the second and third — scoring on a Baab single and a wild pitch in the second and getting a two-run single from Stevens in the third — to take the lead for good, 4-2.
 
Saint Mary's padded their lead to 5-2 on a Nikolich RBI single in the fourth, and, after surrendering a solo run in the top of the fifth, the Cardinals sealed the win with a six-run bottom of the fifth — highlighted by an RBI double by Baab and a two-run two-bagger by Amy Kulaga (Riverside, Ill.).
 
Five Cardinals — Schultz, Schmeling, Nikolich, Stevens, and Baab — all had two hits for the Cardinals, while Stevens and Baab each drove in a pair of runs.
 
The Cardinals (4-4 overall) are off on Friday, before closing out their 10-game spring trip with a pair of contests on Saturday. Saint Mary's will face Eastern Nazarene at 11:15 a.m. (EST), before squaring off against Wartburg at 1:15 p.m. (EST).