By
DONNY NADEAU
Saint Mary's Sports Information Director
ROSEVILLE, Minn. — It had been a long time since the Saint Mary's University of Minnesota baseball team failed to score the game's first run — five games to be exact.
The Cardinals had taken the early lead in each of its four games last weekend in Carol Stream, Ill., not to mention plating a first-inning run in the second game of their doubleheader against John Carroll in the final game of their spring trip on March 3.
Unfortunately, an uncharacteristic first-inning deficit was exactly the predicament the Cardinals found themselves in against St. Scholastica in the opening game of the teams' nonconference doubleheader at Reynolds Field on the campus of the University of Northwestern.
St. Scholastica erupted for three runs in its first at-bat — all with two outs — and added runs in every inning but the second in dealing the Cardinals a 12-4 Game 1 setback.
Saint Mary's returned to its quick-striking ways in the nightcap, however, scoring a pair of runs in the top of the first inning — and the Cardinals never relinquished the lead, earning a split with a 4-1 victory.
The Saints came out swinging in the opener, scoring three times in the first and once more in the third, before the Cardinals' offense finally showed signs of life in the fourth — getting a clutch, two-out double by
Andy Tepp (Stevens Point, Wis.) to cut the deficit to two, 4-2.
The lead returned to four, 6-2, in the bottom half of the fourth, as the Saints took advantage of a Cardinal throwing error to score a pair of unearned runs.
Saint Mary's put together its second straight two-run inning in the fifth — scoring once on a CSS fielding error and the other on a
Zach Drake (Westby, Wis.) sacrifice fly — but the Saints answered with one in the bottom of the fifth, and five more in the sixth to seal the win.
Tepp and
Matthew Piechowski (Hutchinson, Minn.) accounted for four of the Cardinals' seven Game 1 hits, as Tepp went 2-for-2 with a pair of RBIs, while Piechowski was 2-for-3.
Ryan Wolfe (Wabasha, Minn.) suffered the pitching loss, allowing seven runs — four earned — on seven hits in five innings of work.
Liam Belleveau (Middleton, Wis.) and
Will Matthews (Geneva, Ill.) gave Game 2 starter
Eli Morison (Minneapolis, Minn.) some early run support, as Belleveau drove in the game's first run on a sacrifice fly and Matthews followed with an RBI groundout to give the Cardinals a 2-0 advantage after the top of the first inning.
St. Scholastica scratched across a run in the second to cut the Cardinal lead in half, but Saint Mary's answered in the top of the fifth — getting a two-out double from
Justin Weinberg (Eagan, Minn.) followed by an RBI single from Piechowski — to return the Saint Mary's advantage to two, 3-1.
The Cardinals added an insurance run in the seventh on Piechowski's second RBI single of the game, and Kody Kiel (Owatonna, Minn.) worked a one-hit bottom of the seventh to ice the victory.
Piechowski put together his second multiple-hit effort of the afternoon, going 3-for-4 with a pair of RBIs, while Weinberg also collected three hits and scoring twice. Morison earned the pitching win, allowing one run on two hits in five innings of work. Kiel notched his third save with a scoreless seventh.
The Cardinals (8-8 overall) kick off Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference play on Saturday, traveling to Saint John's Becker Park in Collegeville, Minn., for a 1 p.m. doubleheader against the Johnnies.
