WINONA, Minn. — For the second straight meeting, Bethany Lutheran plated nine runs against the Saint Mary's University baseball team in Sunday's nine-inning nonconference matchup.
 
Unlike a year ago, however, the Cardinals were not able to answer with a season-high 19 runs.
 
The Vikings — who lost to SMU 19-9 in last year's meeting — scored a pair of runs in the top of the first inning, and never relinquished the lead, holding off a late-game Saint Mary's rally to deal the Cardinals a 9-6 setback at Max Molock Field.
 
An RBI double and a run-scoring groundout, gave BLC a 2-0 lead after its first at-bat, and an RBI single in the third extended that advantage to 3-0.
 
Saint Mary's scored a pair of unearned runs — one in the third and another in the fourth — only to have the Vikings regain a two-run edge with an unearned run of their own in the top of the fifth.
 
Will Boeckman (Big Lake, Minn.) made it a one-run game once again, delivering a run-scoring single to right, scoring Mason Coyle (Madison, Wis.), who had opened the fifth with a single up the middle.
 
Bethany Lutheran took advantage of a pair of Saint Mary's errors, scoring five times on just two hits in the top of the eighth to push the Vikings' lead to 9-3. SMU got one run back on a one-out trip by Daniel Sherman (Richfield, Minn.) and an RBI single by Ryan Csida (Kimberly, Wis.), and scored two more in the bottom of the ninth of Boeckman's first collegiate home run — a two-out, two-run shot to left-center — but that would be as close as SMU would get.
 
Boeckman, Csida, and Cameron Weber (Holmen, Wis.) all finished 2-for-4, with Boeckman recording three RBIs, while Coyle, Sherman, Stephan Golden (Centerville, Minn.), and Riley Bauman (Stratford, Wis.) all picked up one hit.
 
The Cardinals (0-1 overall) are right back in action on Monday, returning to Max Molock Field for a 1:30 p.m. nine-inning nonconference game against Luther.
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