CLERMONT, Fla. — For the third and fourth time in four games, the Saint Mary's University fastpitch softball team was involved in a game that included one team scoring 10 or more runs.
This time around, however, it was the Cardinals surrendering the runs, not scoring them.
Wartburg turned the tables on the Cardinals — who had scored 14 and 10 runs in beating Neumann (14-0) and Cabrini (10-4) in their first two games of their spring trip — as the Knights erupted 24 runs in sweeping a pair of nonconference games against SMU.
The Knights took control of the first game early, scoring nine runs in the second inning en route to a 14-0, five-inning win, before completing the sweep with a 10-2 win in the nightcap at Legends Way Field.
Plating one run in its first at-bat of the opener, Wartburg sent 13 batters to the plate, scoring nine runs on six hits — and taking advantage of a pair of Saint Mary's errors — to break the game open. The Knights were tack on four more runs in the third en route to the five-inning victory.
After banging out 27 hits in their first two games, the Cardinals were held to just two hits – a
Cassie Sutor (Chicago, Ill.) two-out single in the first and a
Lizzy Baird (Wells, Minn.) pinch-hit single in the fourth — in suffering their first loss of the season.
Wartburg jumped out to an early lead again in the second game, scoring twice in their first at-bat in the top of the first. SMU answered with a solo run in the bottom half of the opening inning — on an RBI double by
Sophie Cave (Maplewood, Minn.) — but the Knights would push their advantage to six, 7-1, thanks to a five-run third inning.
SMU got a one run back on a one-out, run-scoring single by
Sarah Kraus (Onalaska, Wis.) in the fourth, but that was as close as the Cardinals would get, as Wartburg iced its second straight five-inning win by plating three more runs in the top of the fifth.
Saint Mary's six Game 2 hits against the Knights came from six different players — Kraus, Cave,
Allison Ciero (Glen Ellyn, Ill.),
Riley Hall (Dallas Center, Iowa),
Erin Sullivan (Wisconsin Rapids, Wis.), and
Amy Kulaga (Riverside, Ill.). Kraus took the pitching loss, allowing eight runs on six hits in four innings, while Hall surrendered a pair of runs without surrendering a hit in one inning of relief.
After four games in less than 24 hours — including three on Sunday — the Cardinals (2-2 overall) are now off until Tuesday, when they square off against the University of Dubuque (3:15 p.m. EST) and Milwaukee School of Engineering (5 p.m. EST) in Clermont, Fla.
