WINONA, Minn. — When Carleton took the field Saturday afternoon against the Saint Mary's University fastpitch softball team having collected 12 wins in its first 17 games, scoring six or more runs in 10 of those 12 wins — including seven wins when plating 10 or more runs. 
 
The Cardinals limited the high-powered Knights to just three runs in the first game of their Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference doubleheader.
 
Unfortunately for the Cardinals, two of those runs came in the top of the ninth inning, as Carleton grabbed a 3-1 lead and held off a furious Saint Mary's bottom of the frame to deal the Cardinals a 3-2 Game 1 setback.
 
The Knights were back to their high-octane, run-scoring ways in the nightcap, plating solo runs in the first, third, fifth, and seventh innings – while chipping in a two-run fourth — in completing the conference sweep with a 6-2 victory in the nightcap.
 
GAME 1: PUTTING IN A LITTLE OVERTIME
Carleton struck first with a solo run in the top of the second inning off Cardinal starter Sarah Kraus (Onalaska, Wis.).
 
That would be the only run the Knights would score against Kraus over the next six innings. The freshman right-hander helped her own cause in the fifth, leading off the inning with a double and scoring the game-tying run on a one-out single by Riley Hall (Dallas Center, Iowa).
 
The game would remain deadlocked until the ninth, when both teams turned up the offensive heat.
 
Madison Collins belted a one-out, two-run single to give Carleton a 3-1 lead, but the Cardinals would not go down without a fight. Cassie Sutor (Chicago, Ill.) opened the SMU half of the ninth with a double and promptly stole third. Kraus followed with a walk and moved to second on a Carleton fielding error to load the bases. Allison Ciero (Glen Ellyn, Ill.) reached on a fielder's choice groundout to score Sutor, but that would be as close as the Cardinals would get.
 
 Erin Sullivan (Wisconsin Rapids, Wis.) went 2-for-3 to lead the Cardinals' seven-hit offensive attack, while Kraus took the pitching loss, despite going a career-high nine innings and allowing three runs on just five hits, while walking two and strikeout out six.
 
GAME 2: PLENTY OF RUNS TO GO AROUND
After stifling the Knights' offense in Game 1 – limiting their high-powered attack to runs in just two of nine innings — the Cardinals could not match that effort in the nightcap, Carleton scored in all but two innings, slowing pulling away for the sweep-clinching victory.
 
Carleton would come out swinging in Game 2, scoring a solo run in their first at-bat, but the Cardinals had an answer, plating a single run in their half of the first — getting an RBI double from Hall to score Ciero, who led off the inning with a single.
 
After a scoreless second, the Knights went to work, pushing its lead to 5-2 — sandwiching one-run innings in the third and fifth around a two-run fourth — before Saint Mary's was able to cut into the deficit with a run in the sixth on a two-out RBI single by Amelia Spilde (Brooklyn, Wis.).
 
The Knights answered with a run in the top of the seventh to round out the scoring, and ice their second straight win over the Cardinals.
 
 
Hall led the way for the Cardinal offense, going 3-for-4 with a pair of doubles and an RBI, while Ciero chipped in a pair of hits and scored one of SMU's two runs.
 
The Cardinals (3-3 MIAC, 10-7 overall) are right back in action on Sunday, as they head to Northfield, Minn., for a 1 p.m. conference doubleheader against St. Olaf.
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