The Teams
Saint Mary's Cardinals (7-5)
vs.
UW-Eau Claire Blugolds (10-4)
The Vitals
Friday, April 6 • SMU Field • 3:30 p.m.
Last Action
The Cardinals are coming off a conference-opening split with St. Thomas (3-1 loss, 3-2 win). … UW-Eau Claire, meanwhile, has been off since back-to-back wins over Ramapo (N.J.) College and The College of New Jersey on March 23.
Last Meeting
The Cardinals split their two nonconference games with UW-Eau Claire a year ago, dropping the first game 3-2, then winning the second 10-0.
Conference Standings
Through Wednesday, April 4, 2001
Cardinals Update
SMU maintained its stranglehold on the No. 1 spot in teh latest NFCA poll. … Jackie Huegel (Alta Vista, Iowa) laced her first HR of the season in Game 2 vs. St. Thomas. … Jill Hocking (Apple Valley, Minn.), who took the loss in Game 1 vs. UST, came on and pitched 1 2/3 innings of hitless relief to earn the team’s first save in the nightcap against the Tommies. … Huegel collected three of SMU’s 8 hits vs. UST. … The Game 2 win snapped the Cardinals’ four-game losing streak, their longest such streak since the 1996 season.
Blugolds Update
The Blugolds are currently ranked No. 11 in the latest NFCA poll … Offensively, UW-Eau Claire is led by Megan Grinnell (.350) and Jannah Grinnell (.333). … Kim Czapla is a perfect 6-0 with a 1.43 ERA to lead the Blugolds’ pitching corps. … UW-Eau Claire is 5-1 in its last six games. … The Blugolds have collected 21 extra-base hits, including five home runs. … Like SMU, UW-Eau Claire qualified for the NCAA Division III national tournament a year ago, going 2-2 in the 8-team, double-elimination tourney.
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CARDINAL PROFILEJennifer Meyer
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Second-game win vs. Tommies
puts Cardinals back on right track
WINONA, Minn. — Nikki Fennern would have loved to have opened the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference season with a pair of wins against St. Thomas Wednesday.
After all, not only would the Cardinals have had the upper hand over the defending MIAC champion Tommies in the race for the 2001 crown, but it would have also ended a three-game losing streak, and it would have come against their former coach, John Tschida, who left SMU to accept the head coaching position at St. Thomas.
But after dropping their fourth straight game, 3-1, in the opener against the Tommies — leaving the Cardinals mired in their longest losing streak since a four-game slide early in the 1996 season — Fennern knew nothing less than a split would do.
Talk about pressure.
Which is just what the Cardinals thrive on.
Led by the offensive exploits of sophomore Jackie Huegel (Alta Vista, Iowa), who accounted for two of SMU’s four hits — including a two-out, fourth-inning home run — the Cardinals finally put an end to their losing ways with a 3-2 victory, and earned that all-important conference split.
“Winning that second game was huge, no question about it,” admitted Fennern. “After we lost that first game (surrendering all three runs in the fourth inning, after SMU had taken a 1-0 first-inning lead), it was pretty obvious that the second game was a must-win game for us.
“Our backs were to the wall,” continued SMU’s first-year head coach. “We knew we couldn’t afford to fall two games behind (St. Thomas) in the conference race — we needed to do everything in our power to stay even with them.”
Pressure? What pressure?
“This team is unique in that they thrive on situations like that,” admitted Fennern. “The more pressure-packed the situation, the better they respond.”
The Cardinals may have snapped their four-game slide and earned a valuable split with their second-game heroics, but they certainly can’t afford to put their game on cruise control — not with 11th-ranked UW-Eau Claire coming to town today.
“That win got us back on track,” Fennern said. “It wasn’t that we had been playing that poorly (during the four-game losing streak), it’s just that, no matter how well you play, a loss is still a loss.
“But we got that monkey off our backs and we’re back on track — now it’s time to get things rolling.”