MANKATO, Minn. — The weather may not be warming up, but the Saint Mary's baseball team certainly is.
The Cardinals, coming off a combined 19-run offensive explosion in sweeping Concordia on Friday — including plating a season-high 10 runs in a 10-3, Game 1 victory — picked up right where they left off against Bethany Lutheran on Sunday.
In fact, that season-high 10-run effort against the Cobbers two days earlier paled in comparison to the offensive firework display the Cardinals unveiled against the Vikings.
SMU scored at least one run in seven of the nine innings — including a six-run third, a four-run ninth, and a pair of three-run innings in the fifth and sixth — as the Cardinals collected their third straight win, rolling to a 19-9 nonconference win at ISG Field.
SMU broke through in the second to take the early lead, 1-0.
Will Boeckman (Big Lake, Minn.) kicked things off with a one-out triple and
Ryan Campbell (New Berlin, Wis.) was hit by a pitch. Boeckman was thrown on at the plate on an attempted double-steal, but
Sam Schneider (St. Joseph, Minn.) followed with a run-scoring single up the middle to plate Campbell from second with the game's first run.
The Vikings quickly answered in their half of the second, tagging Cardinal pitcher
Andrew Milner (Eau Claire, Wis.) — making his first collegiate start — for a solo run on two hits to knot the game at 1-1.
For the second inning in a row, the Cardinals took advantage of a hit batsman to regain the lead in the third. With one out,
Riley Bauman (Stratford, Wis.) was hit by a pitch, stole second, and, after
Mason Coyle (Madison, Wis.) walked, Bauman scored on a
Daniel Marxen (Maple Grove, Minn.) single through the right side. Coyle then scored SMU's second run of the inning on a Viking throwing error to give Saint Mary's a 3-1 advantage.
And the Cardinals were just getting started.
After Boeckman fouled out for SMU's second out of the third, Campbell drew a walk to load the bases, Schneider delivered a bases-clearing double to right-center and
Cameron Weber (Holmen, Minn.) added an RBI single — and the Cardinals' lead ballooned to 7-1.
Bethany Lutheran got one run back with a lead-off home run in the bottom of the third, but the Cardinals' bats were just getting warmed up, as they regained their six-run cushion in the fourth — thanks to a lead-off single by
Riley Bauman and a double to left-center by Coyle.
The Vikings took a page out of the Cardinals' playbook to whittle the SMU lead to 8-4, taking advantage of back-to-back hit batsmen and an infield single to load the bases. Xavier Palmer singled to driving in BLC's first run and an RBI groundout by Lucas Reiff plated the second. Milner, who walked JT Garcia to reload the bases, wiggled out of the jam by inducing an inning-ending, 6-4-3 double play.
Saint Mary's continued to feast on BLC pitching in the middle innings, scoring three times in both the fifth and sixth innings to expand its ever-growing lead to 14-4. The Cardinals pushed three runs across in the fifth — once on a
Brandon Merfeld (La Crosse, Wis.) triple, once on a Coyle bases-loaded walk, and once on a wild pitch — and added another trio of runs on an RBI double by Weber, a sacrifice fly of the bat of
Riley Bauman, and an RBI infield single by Coyle in the sixth.
For just the second time in seven innings, the Cardinals were held off the scoreboard in the seventh — and the Vikings took advantage. BLC parlayed four hits and a Cardinal throwing error into five runs — and just like that, SMU's 10-run cushion was cut in half, 14-9.
Riley Bauman lifted his second sacrifice fly of the afternoon in the eighth, driving in Weber — who had opened the inning with a double and moved to third on a Merfeld single — to make it 15-9.
The Cardinals then made the most of their final at-bat, scoring four more times. Boeckman capped a 2-for-4 day at the plate in convincing fashion, belting his first collegiate home run — a one-out, two-run shot to center — and Merfeld and
Riley Bauman chipped RBIs with a single and a double, respectively, as Saint Mary's matched its highest run-producing performance since scoring 19 runs against Finlandia on March 1, 2017.
Weber led the Cardinals' 17-hit offensive barrage, going 5-for-7 with a pair of doubles, four runs scored and two RBIs, while Merfeld went 3-for-5 and
Riley Bauman, Coyle, Boeckman, and Schneider all chipped in two hits. Schneider closed out the day with a career-high four RBIs, with Coyle and
Riley Bauman each driving in three.
The Cardinals (11-18 overall) return to Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference play on Tuesday, traveling to CHS Field in St. Paul, Minn., for a doubleheader against Hamline. First pitch in Game 1 is slated for 4 p.m.
