CLERMONT, Fla. — For the second time during its six-game spring trip, the Saint Mary's University fastpitch softball team took the field Thursday afternoon squaring off against opponents they had never faced before.
 
And Heidelberg and Penn State Behrend left the field hoping they would never have to face the Cardinals again.
 
Saint Mary's kicked off its day with a thrilling, eight-inning win over Heidelberg — scoring the game-winning run on a Student Princes throwing error — before collecting their second straight extra-inning victory with crazy, 15-11 victory, highlighted by a nine-run Cardinal seventh inning.
 
GAME 1: SAINT MARY'S 3, HEIDELBERG 2 (8 innings)
Saint Mary's struck first, scoring a solo run in the bottom of the second. Heather Nordlund (Byron, Minn.) laced a lead-off double, and pinch-runner Savannah Swanson () was sacrificed to third, and scored one out later on a wild pitch.
 
Both teams scratched across a run in the fourth, with Saint Mary's coming on a Zoe Fink (Stevens Point, Wis.) RBI bunt single, before the Student Princes knotted the game with a single run in the top of the seventh.
 
Saint Mary's broke the 2-2 deadlock in the bottom of the eighth, when Gabby Grover scored from second on a Heidelberg throwing error on Ali French's (Winona, Minn.) sacrifice bunt attempt.
 
Makayla Steffes (Winona, Minn.) led the Cardinal offense, going 2-for-4, while Nordlund, Fink, and Breonna Methner (Woodbury, Minn.) collected SMU's other three hits. Steffes also picked up the win in the pitcher's circle, allowing two runs on six hits, while striking out a career-high nine.
 
GAME 2: SAINT MARY'S 15, PENN STATE BEHREND 11 (8 innings)
Through the game's first six innings, the Cardinal offense was virtually non-existent, as Penn State Behrend limiting Saint Mary's to just a lone second-inning run in taking what appeared to be a commanding 7-1 lead heading into the seventh.
 
And what a seventh inning it proved to be.
 
The Cardinals erupted for nine runs — highlighted by a two-run double from Nordlund and RBI hits from Lizzie Pike (Rochester, Minn.), Abbie Stigler (Menomonee Falls, Wis.), Methner, French, Peyton Berg (Chatfield, Minn.), and Michelle Smith (Oak Lawn, Ill.) — to take a 10-7 lead.
 
Like the Cardinals, the Panthers made the most of their final regulation at-bat, answering SMU's nine-run frame with three runs of their own to send the game into extra innings.
 
And for the second time in two games, the Cardinals would make the most of the extra frame, scoring four times in the top of the eighth, and limiting Behrend to a single run in the bottom to seal the come-from-behind victory.
 
Naleya Bork (De Pere, Wis.) led the way for the SMU offense, going 4-for-5 with three runs scored, while Berg, Pike, and Stigler each chipped in three hits, and Steffes and Nordlund added two hits apiece.
 
The Cardinals (11-1 overall) close out their spring trip with a pair of games on Friday, squaring off against Nebraska Wesleyan at 1:45 p.m. (EST) and vs. Elizabethtown at 4:15 p.m. (EST).
 
 
 
 
  Read Full Article