WINONA, Minn. — With one swing of the bat, the Saint Mary's University fastpitch softball team achieved a pair of collegiate firsts.
 
Lizzy Baird (Wells, Minn.) drilled her first collegiate home run, a three-run shot in the bottom of the fifth inning, giving the Cardinals a 9-0, Game 2 victory over UW-Superior — and earning freshman Morgan Dziondziakowski (South Milwaukee, Wis.) her first career no-hitter.
 
The Yellowjackets used some late-game heroics to take the first game of the teams' nonconference doubleheader, scoring five times in the top of the seventh inning in rallying for a 6-5 victory at the Saint Mary's Field.
 
If the Cardinals were feeling an ill effects of that Game 1 loss, they certainly didn't show it in the nightcap, scoring a pair of runs in their first at-bat — on a two-run double by Erin Sullivan (Wisconsin Rapids, Wis.).
 
Saint Mary's pushed its lead to 5-0 with three runs in the fourth, before ending the game with a four-run fifth — highlighted by Baird's two-out, three-run bomb.
 
Dziondziakowski twirled a masterpiece in her third start as a Cardinal, striking out three and walking just one, inducing the Yellowjackets into seven fly ball outs and 11 ground outs.
 
Sullivan joined Baird in the home run club — belting her team-leading second of the year to lead off the fifth. She and Baird each went 2-for-3 with three RBIs to pace the Cardinal offense, which scored nine runs on eight hits.

It took the Cardinals four innings to get their offense on track in the opener, but was it did, the Cardinals had UW-Superior right where they wanted them.
 
Or so they thought.
 
After being blanked for four innings, Saint Mary's plated two runs in the fifth and one in the sixth to take a 3-1 lead — and all the Cardinals needed was three outs to secure the Game 1 win.
 
Unfortunately, by the time that third out was recorded in the top of the seventh, the Yellowjackets — taking advantage of two SMU errors — scored five times. UW-Superior then held off a furious SMU bottom of the seventh to deal the Cardinals a 6-5 setback.
 
UW-Superior scored in its first at-bat in the opener, but that would be the extent of the Yellowjackets' offense — until the seventh inning, that is.
 
Saint Mary's, meanwhile, got a two-run single by Cassie Sutor (Chicago, Ill.) in the fifth, and an RBI single by Haley Williams (Littleton, Colo.) in the sixth to give the Cardinals a 3-1 lead.
 
Down, but not out, following UW-Superior's five-run seventh, Saint Mary's parlayed two singles and a pair of Yellowjacket errors into two runs, but the Cardinals stranded the game-tying run at second and the game-winning run at first.
 
Tessa Shafranski (Stevens Point, Wis.) went 2-for-4 with a run scored, and Sutor finished 1-for-3 with a pair of RBIs to pace the Cardinals' eight-hit, Game 1 offensive attack. Hallie Schmeling (Onalaska, Wis.), Sullivan (Wisconsin Rapids, Wis.), Williams, and Lexi Brooks (Searcy, Ark.) had SMU's other five hits.
 
The Cardinals (9-25 overall) close out their 2021 schedule on Sunday, traveling to Carleton's Ele Hansen Field in Northfield, Minn., for a 1 p.m. conference doubleheader against the Knights.