By DONNY NADEAU
Saint Mary's Sports Information Director
 
AUBURNDALE, Fla. — It took the Saint Mary's University baseball team six innings to get its offense on track in the first game of its spring trip doubleheader against Ohio Northern Friday morning.
 
But when you have James Green (East Bethel, Minn.) as your starting pitcher, a slow offensive start was no reason for the Cardinals to hit the panic button.
 
With Green doing his part — allowing ONU just two runs in a seven-inning, complete-game effort — the Cardinal offense finally caught fire, scoring all three of their runs in the sixth inning en route to a 3-2 Game 1 victory over the Polar Bears.
 
Ohio Northern kicked its offense into high gear in the nightcap — and this time around, the Cardinal offense once again started slow, and could never shift out of neutral — as the Polar Bears scored in six of the seven innings in salvaging a split with an 11-0 victory.
 
Green and ONU starter Troy Wagner dominated the early innings of the opener, throwing matching zeroes through four innings.
 
The Polar Bears got to Green in the fifth, getting a one-out RBI single from Michael Rocco to score Chayten Overholt from second with the game's first run.
 
Ohio Northern padded its lead to 2-0 with a second straight solo run in the top of the sixth, but the Cardinals finally solved Wagner in their half of the inning.
 
After being limited to just three hits through the first five innings, the Cardinals' bats came to life in the sixth, as Zach Drake (Westby, Wis.) led off with a double, scored on a Tyler O'Brien (Belle Plaine, Minn.) base hit, and Matthew Piechowski (Hutchinson, Minn.) delivered Saint Mary's third straight hit to open the inning — an RBI double — knotting the game at 2-2, and chasing Wagner.
 
And the Cardinals were just getting warmed up.
 
ONU reliever Devin Johnson got the first two outs of the inning, but Kodey Kiel (Owatonna, Minn.) came through in the clutch for the Cardinals, lacing a two-out single to left to plate Piechowski with the go-ahead run. Back-to-back walks to Bob Tilot (Pulaski, Wis.) and Liam Belleveau (Middleton, Wis.) loaded the bases — but Scott Beaton, ONU's third pitcher of the inning, wiggled out of the jam with a fielder's choice groundout.
 
Green ended the contest in the same fashion he started it, setting the Polar Bears down in order in the seventh — sandwiching a pair of strikeouts around a groundout back to the mound — en route to the complete-game win.
 
Piechowski and Kiel fueled the Cardinals' seven-hit offensive attack in the opener, each going 2-for-3, while O'Brien, Drake, and Will Matthews (Geneva, Ill.) accounted for the other three. Green limited ONU to just the two runs on eight hits, while striking out nine and not walking a batter.
 
The Polar Bears jumped on Cardinal starter Justin Haugo (Springfield, Minn.) in the first-inning on the nightcap, tagging the freshman right-hander for three runs on four hits in their first at-bat — and they never took their foot off the accelerator.
 
Ohio Northern pushed its lead to 5-0 with one swing of the bat in the third, as Corey McMann launched a two-run home run to left field to give the Polar Bears a 5-0 lead — a lead that ballooned to 9-0 in their next at-bat, as ONU plated four more runs, on four hits, in their next at-bat.
 
The Polar Bears would tack on single runs in the fifth and sixth innings in securing the nonconference split.
 
ONU pitcher Nate Bye held the Cardinals to just two hits — a Matthews single in the second and an Isaac Blum (Verona, Wis.) pinch-hit single in the sixth — while not walking a batter and striking out six.
 
The Cardinals (3-4 overall) are back on the diamond on Saturday, squaring off against Muhlenberg in a pair of spring trip games in Auburndale, Fla. First pitch in the opener is set for 9 a.m. EST.