COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. — The sun was out, but there was a definite chill in the air when the Saint Mary's University baseball team took the field Friday afternoon for a key, early-season Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference doubleheader against Saint John's.
 
And with Mother Nature still delivering mid-February temperatures — first pitch between the Johnnies and Cardinals was a "balmy" 36 degrees — the teams were once again battling the elements as much as they were each other.
 
Unfortunately for Saint Mary's, the Cardinal offense was as frigid as the temperatures.
 
Saint John's limited the Cardinals to just three runs over 16 innings, as the Johnnies dealt Saint Mary's 6-0 and 10-3 setbacks at Becker Park.
 
GAME 1: FIRING BLANKS
After coming up empty in the first inning, the Johnnies' offense came to life in the second, and with one swing of the bat — a rather large swing by Matt Herold — Saint John's had as many runs as they would need. Herold launched an Andrew Fischer (La Crosse, Wis.) over the fence in left-center for a grand slam home run — and a 4-0 SJU cushion.
 
The Johnnies tacked on solo runs in the fifth and sixth innings — and with Kody Dalen and Evan Soeffke combining on a four-hit shutout, six runs was more than enough.
 
Brandon Merfeld (La Crosse, Wis.), Trevon VanEgtern (La Crosse, Wis.), Patrick Schork (Janesville, Wis.), and Tanner Bauman (Willmar, Minn.) accounted for SMU's four hits, while Fischer suffered the loss, despite tossing his first collegiate complete game.
 
GAME 2: SLAMMED AGAIN
Saint Mary's broke through with a run in its first at-bat in the Game 2 rematch, only to have Saint John's score once in the second — before erupting for seven in the fifth — to put the game out of reach.
 
Merfeld opened the Cardinal first with a double to left, was sacrificed to third, and scored on a VanEgtern one-out single.
 
From there, however, the Johnnies took control, knotting the game at 1-1 on an RBI single by Peter, and used the second grand slam of the afternoon — this one off the bat of Joe Becker — to ignite their seven-run fifth, and give SJU an 8-1 lead.
 
Mason Coyle (Madison, Wis.) lift a lead-off home run down the left field line and Merfeld added an RBI single in Saint Mary's two-run sixth, but it was too little, too late, as SJU answered with back-to-back one-run innings in the bottom of the sixth and seventh to complete the sweep.
 
VanEgtern finished 3-for-5 to pace Saint Mary's nine-hit attack in Game 2, with Merfeld adding two hits, while Coyle, Schorck, Will Boeckman (Big Lake, Minn.), and Cameron Weber (Holmen, Wis.) accounted for the other three hits.
 
The Cardinals (2-2 MIAC, 6-10 overall) are right back in action on Saturday, when they return home to Max Molock Field for a. 1 p.m. conference twinbill against St. Olaf.
  Read Full Article