ST. PAUL, Minn. — When the Saint Mary's University fastpitch softball team took the field Monday afternoon, the Cardinals had already played four games over the weekend — with the daunting task of playing their third doubleheader in as many days.
If the Cardinals were feeling any signs of fatigue, however, they certainly didn't show it.
In fact, after managing just seven runs — combined — in those previous four conference games against Carleton and St. Olaf, the Saint Mary's offense appeared rejuvenated against the Pipers.
The Cardinals used a pair of three-run innings and banged out 12 hits in grabbing a 6-2 win in the opening game of their Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference twinbill, and were deadlocked with the Pipers 3-3 heading to the top of the 10th inning in the nightcap when play was suspended due to darkness. The game will be completed at a later date.
GAME 1: DÉJÀ VU
The Cardinals got on the board first, parlaying four hits and a Piper error into four, third-inning runs — and a 4-0 Saint Mary's advantage.
Allison Ciero (Glen Ellyn, Ill.) got things started in the third with a one-out single, and moved to second on a passed ball.
Riley Hall (Dallas Center, Iowa) delivered an RBI single to score Ciero, and promptly stole second.
Heather Nordlund (Byron, Minn.) walked and
Sophie Cave (Maplewood, Minn.) laced SMU's third single of the inning — this one down the left-field line —to plate Hall, and a Hamline error allowed pinch-runner
Savannah Swanson (Marengo, Ill.) to score the Cardinals' third run of the inning.
It was déjà vu for the Cardinals in the fifth, as Saint Mary's posted its second three-run inning — once again recording four hits and taking advantage of a Hamline error. With two outs and a runner on second, Saint Mary's turned back-to-back-to-back-to-back singles by
Cassie Sutor (Chicago, Ill.),
Sarah Kraus (Onalaska, Wis.), Marisa Kindler (Sussex, Wis.), and Ciero into three more runs and a commanding 6-0 cushion.
The Pipers cut into the Saint Mary's advantage in the bottom of the fifth, getting a two-run triple off the bat of Megan Rubbelke, but that would be the only runs HU would get off Kraus — who tossed a complete-game six-hitter.
Ciero finished with three hits in five at-bats to pace the Cardinals, who also got two hits from both Cave and Hall as part of their 12-hit attack.
GAME 2: WINNER TO BE DETERMINED
Ciero and the Cardinals picked up right where they left off to open the nightcap, scoring twice in their first at-bat. Ciero collected her fourth hit of the afternoon to open the game, stole second, and, after Hall reached on a fielder's choice, both scored on a Nordlund single for an early, 2-0 SMU lead.
Hamline threatened in the bottom of the first, loading the bases with one out, but Kraus — on in relief of starter
Molly Richgels (New Prague, Minn.) — induced a force-out and a strikeout to end the inning and preserve the Cardinals' two-run advantage.
The Pipers threatened again in the fourth – and this time, they cashed in, as Megan Rubbelke laced a two-run double and Grace Cook added an RBI single to give HU its first lead of the afternoon, 3-2.
After banging out four hits in the first inning — marking the third time in the doubleheader that SMU had posted four hits in an inning — Saint Mary's managed just one hit over the next four innings.
In the sixth, however, the Cardinals offense came back to life.
Ciero, who owned Saint Mary's only hit since the first inning — a third-inning single — led off the Cardinal sixth with hit No. 3 of the game. The freshman was sacrificed to second and moved to third on a wild pitch, before scoring the game-tying run on a Nordlund single.
Both teams had golden opportunities to end the game in the seventh — and again in the ninth — only to come up empty each time.
The Cardinals had the go-ahead run thrown out at the plate in the top of the seventh, while the Pipers put runners on first and second with one out, but Kraus induced a pair of groundouts to send the game into extra innings.
The Cardinals and Pipers each had a baserunner reach second base in the ninth with less than two outs, but neither team could scratch across the game-winning run.
Ciero collected her second straight three-hit game, while Nordlund delivered her first collegiate three-hit contest — going 3-for-4 with three RBIs — as the tandem accounted for six of the Cardinals' nine hits.
Saint Mary's (4-5 MIAC, 11-9 overall) are back in action on Wednesday, when they head to Duluth, Minn., for a 3:30 p.m. MIAC doubleheader against conference-newcomer St. Scholastica.
