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Cardinal Roster
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Cardinal Statistics
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Cardinal Schedule
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MIAC Standings
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MIAC Statistics
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| 2005 Final Records: 0-0 MIAC, 3-5 Overall |
| Last Week's Results: Sun West Tournament, Orange, Calif. Rutgers-Camden 5, SMU 4 (8) / Details Simon Fraser 7, SMU 2 / Details SMU 5, Rutgers-Camden 4 (9) / Details SMU 10, Mt. St. Joseph 1 (5) / Details Puget Sound 4, SMU 2 / Details Point Loma 4, SMU 3 (8) / Details SMU 1, Amherst 0 / Details Chapman 1, SMU 0 / Details |
| Upcoming Events: SMU at Coe Tourn., Cedar Rapids, Iowa Fri., March 24: SMU vs. Coe, 4:30 p.m. Fri., March 24: SMU vs. Monmouth, 6:30 p.m. Sat., March 25: SMU vs. Simpson, 9 a.m. Sat., March 25: SMU vs. Central, 2 p.m. Wed., March 29: Hamline at SMU, 4 p.m. |
| Cardinal News and Notes: Six of the Cardinals' eight Sun West Tournament games were decided by one run — including three that went extra innings. … Three of the Cardinals' five losses were against nationally ranked teams — 5-4 in eight innings to No. 9 Rutgers Camden, 1-0 to No. 3 Chapman and 7-2 to No. 2 (in NAIA) Simon Fraser. … Jenny Schipp (Oakdale, Minn.) hit a team-best .400 (8-for-20) during SMU's Sun West Tournament appearance. The SMU senior — who had at least one hit in all six games she played — also had a team-best two doubles and drove in a team-high seven runs. … Schipp missed SMU's games vs. Amherst and Chapman Sunday due to the flu, marking the first time since her freshman season that Schipp was not in the Cardinals' lineup — a span of 86 games. … Nikki Jung (Inver Grove Heights, Minn.) belted SMU's first HR of the season, a solo shot in the top of the first inning of Sunday's 1-0 win over Amherst. … Erin Leone (Farmington, Minn.) picked up her first collegiate pitching win, a three-hit shutout against Amherst, and finished the tournament with a 0.90 ERA, allowing just two earned runs in 20 innings. She also struck out a team-high 26 batters. … |
has its share of ups and downs as SMU finishes 3-5
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Jenny
Schipp Hit .400 with 2 2B, 7 RBIs at Sun West |
The Cardinals opened the season with back-to-back losses to Rutgers Camden (5-4 in 8 innings) and Simon Fraser (7-2) last Thursday, then followed that up with victories over Rutgers Camden (5-4 in 9 innings) and Mount St. Joseph (10-1 in five innings) on Friday.
Down … then up … then …
Down.
Puget Sound and Point Loma (Calif.) forced the Cardinals' ride to plummet back down from Friday's high, as the Loggers dropped SMU 4-2, while the Sea Lions used a pair of two-run innings — the second in the bottom of the eighth — to beat the Cardinals 4-3.
Then came Sunday's final two games.
SMU coach Nikki Fennern had a strange sense of deja vu during her Cardinals' final day at the Sun West Tournament.
After Chapman handed the Cardinals a 1-0 setback — scoring its lone run in the top of the first inning — Fennern had a feeling she and her team had been in that situation before.
Maybe because, less than two hours earlier, they had.
Nikki Jung (Inver Grove Heights, Minn.) belted SMU's first home run of the season — in the top of the first inning — as the Cardinals opened the day with a 1-0 victory over Amherst.
"If we learned anything this week, it's that we aren't going to fold under the pressure of playing in close ball games," said Fennern, whose team went 3-5 during its eight games in the Sun West Tournament — including six games that were decided by one run. "Obviously, we've still got a lot of work to do, but overall I was pretty pleased with what I saw."
Fennern did admit, however, that while the Cardinal pitching staff appears to be near mid-season form, SMU's offense and defense are still a bit rusty.
Take Sunday's opener against Amherst.
The Cardinals managed just two hits — Jung's first-inning home run and a single by Megan Pulvermacher (Richland Center, Wis.) — against the Jeffs. But that proved to be more than enough for pitcher Erin Leone (Farmington, Minn.), who scattered three hits and struck out nine in picking up the complete-game pitching win.
SMU's offense continued to struggle against Chapman, as the Cardinals mustered just four singles — by four different players — in falling to the third-ranked Panthers. Megan Wallisch (Loveland, Colo.) went the distance on the mound for SMU, scattering five hits — and the lone first-inning run — while striking out five.
"We were a bit shorthanded (Sunday), and it showed," said Fennern, noting that three of the Cardinals' starters, including pitching ace Jenny Schipp (Oakdale, Minn.) were out of the lineup due to the flu, while two others played despite being under the weather. "Against teams like (Chapman) you'd like to be able to put your best lineup together and we weren't able to do that. But I thought we hung in there pretty well.
"This was a very good tournament for us — a great way to start the season," said Fennern, adding that three of SMU's three losses — 5-4 in eight innings to No. 9 Rutgers Camden, 1-0 to No. 3 Chapman and 7-2 to No. 2 (in NAIA) Simon Fraser — were against nationally ranked teams. "We knew the competition was going to be tough, and we put ourselves in position to win every game — we just weren't able to get the timely hits when we needed them."