ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University and Macalester fastpitch softball teams both entered Sunday's Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference doubleheader riding a huge wave of momentum.
 
The Cardinals were coming off an offensive explosion, scoring 16 runs in sweeping Hamline with a pair of 8-3 victories on Saturday.
 
Macalester, meanwhile, made the most of its final game ever against NCAA Division I-bound St. Thomas, dealing the Tommies a 4-2 setback in the second game of the teams' Saturday twinbill.
 
Sunday afternoon, however, the momentum belonged solely to the Scots.
 
Unfazed by the Cardinals' 16-run onslaught of the previous day, Macalester promptly limited Saint Mary's to just two runs on eight hits over 14 innings in dealing SMU 7-2 and 2-0 setbacks Sunday afternoon.
 
Macalester grabbed an early lead in the opener, scoring four times in the bottom of the second inning. And, after Saint Mary's got one run back on an Amber Chow (West St. Paul, Minn.) run-scoring double in the third, Macalester plated its fifth run of the game in the fourth to take a 5-1 advantage.
 
Saint Mary's made it 5-2 on an RBI groundout by Hallie Schmeling (Onalaska, Wis.) in the top of the sixth, only to have the Scots answer with a two-run bottom of the inning to seal the Game 1 victory.
 
Chow went 2-for-4 with an RBI to pace the Cardinals' offense, with Jordan Meyers (Eyota, Minn.) and Morgan Dziondziakowski (South Milwaukee, Wis.) recording SMU's other two hits.
 
Saint Mary's offense continued to struggle against Scot pitching in the nightcap, managing just four hits for the second straight game — two off the bat of Cassie Sutor (Chicago, Ill.) and one each from Tara Nikolich (Chicago, Ill.) and Schmeling — while Macalester scored single runs in the first and sixth innings to complete the sweep.
 
The Cardinals (2-4 MIAC, 5-13 overall) are back in action on Thursday, playing host to St. Olaf in a 3:30 p.m. conference doubleheader at the Saint Mary's Field.