Red-hot Cardinals are not about to let
their game get out of sync vs. Carleton

WINONA, Minn. — When the Saint Mary’s University fastpitch softball team experienced a rather unCardinal-like four-game losing streak earlier this year, head coach Nikki Fennern knew her squad was just working out a few early-season kinks.

“We’re playing good ball, things just aren’t falling our way,” Fennern said at the time. “If we can just get on a positive roll and get into our rhythm, that’s just going to carry over from game to game.”

Fennern will be the first to tell you, she’s no mind-reader — she doesn’t have any special powers that enable her a glimpse into the future — yet, that’s exactly what the Cardinals have made her out to be.

And while her mid-slump comment wasn’t meant to be any sort of a threat, after what SMU has done to its opponents since that conference-opening, 3-1 loss to St. Thomas, the rest of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference might want to consider it just that.

Since that aforementioned loss to the Tommies, the Cardinals have rattled off 11 straight wins heading into today's MIAC doubleheader against Carleton.

“We are definitely in a positive rhythm right now,” said Fennern, whose team has outscored its opponents 94-14 during its recent run — including six games that were cut short by the eight-run mercy rule. “Early on, when we weren’t getting too many games in, it was hard to get anything going. We seemed to hit the ball hard, it was just right at people.

“We weren’t playing poorly, we just couldn’t seem to put it all together.”

Once those pieces all finally fell into place, however, the Cardinals have been unstoppable.

Led by Jill Hocking (Apple Valley, Minn.) and Ann Munzenmaier (Urbandale, Iowa), SMU’s high-powered offense has been clicking on all cylinders. In their three doubleheaders last week, the Cardinals cranked out 64 hits in sweeping UW-La Crosse (3-0 and 7-3), St. Olaf (12-2 and 16-2) and Augsburg (4-1 and 9-0).

“We are playing very well right now — all the way around,” said Fennern, noting that, while the offense — and its team .328 batting average with 44 doubles and 57 extra-base hits — has stolen most of the limelight, the Cardinals’ pitching and rock-solid defense give SMU a lethal 1-2-3 punch. “I knew it was going to be just a matter of time before we broke loose, and that’s exactly what’s happened.”

Now, however, the key for Fennern is to keep that finely tuned machine running in tip-top condition.

With a schedule that has SMU playing at least every third day, if not every other day from now until the end of the season, that shouldn’t be a problem.

“Because of the spring we’ve had, we’ve got a lot of games packed into a short amount of time, which should work in our favor — especially if we can continue to play the way we are,” said Fennern, whose team plays host to Carleton (Wednesday) and Gustavus (Saturday) this week. “All we need to do is to continue to perform at the high level we’ve been playing — stay in that positive rhythm — and we’ll be just fine.”