The Teams
Saint Mary's Cardinals (13-1 MIAC, 23-5)
vs.
St. Catherine (4-6 MIAC, 8-11)
The Vitals
Thursday, April 26 • SMU Field • 4 p.m.
Last Action
The Cardinals are coming off a 4-1, 10-0 sweep of Hamline on Tuesday, while St. Catherine dropped both its games against Gustavus, falling 4-1 and 5-4 in eight innings.
Last Meeting
The Cardinals cruised to a conference sweep of the Wildcats, winning 11-4 and 14-1 a year ago.
Conference Standings
Through Wednesday, April 25, 2001
This and That
Jill Hocking (Apple Valley, Minn.) was named MIAC Pitcher of the Week last week after pitching 16 innings of shutout ball, striking out 16 and holding the opposition to a meager .080 batting average. … On the down side, Hocking’s 0-for-3 performance in Game 2 vs. Gustavus last Saturday snapped her 14-game hitting streak. … SMU has now won 13 straight MIAC games, and 17 straight overall. … As a team, the Cardinals are hitting .320, led by Hocking’s .417 and Jennifer Meyer’s (Oconomowoc, Wis.) .390. … Hocking, Meyer and Jackie Huegel (Alta Vista, Iowa) lead the team in home runs with two, while Hocking holds the team lead in doubles (7) and triples (4). … Jennifer Gonerka (St. Paul, Minn.) won her seventh straight decision in tossing a five-inning one-hitter vs. Hamline. Hocking, meanwhile, won her team-leading 11th game with a three-hitter in Game 1 vs. the Pipers. … SMU has outscored its opponents 172-40 — including 37-6 in the first inning. … St. Catherine has been involved in six extra-inning games — all decided in the eighth inning — going 3-3. … SMU, meanwhile, is 2-2 in extra-innings, including a 2-1 loss in an 11-inning marathon against Central-Iowa.
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CARDINAL PROFILEGina Rizzardi
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Cardinals put 17-game winning streak on line this afternoon vs. St. Catherine
WINONA, Minn. — With less than two weeks remaining in the Saint Mary’s University fastpitch softball team’s regular season, there is only one thing for certain — nothing’s for certain.
All signs seem to point to a fifth straight post-season berth for the Cardinals — the defending national champions are tied for the top spot in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference race with a 13-1 record and are currently ranked No. 1 in the latest USA Today/NFCA national poll. But head coach Nikki Fennern’s squad knows that one slip could mean the difference between a post-season invitation and a one-way ticket home.
“I don’t think there is any more pressure on us today than there was on us when the season started,” noted Fennern, who has said all along that her squad thrives on the pressure that goes with being the defending national champs. “When you are the top team, every team you face wants to knock you off, so every day we have to make sure we are at our best.”
And so far, that plan has worked to perfection.
SMU ran its season-high winning streak to 17 straight with a 4-1, 10-0 sweep of Hamline last Tuesday. The Cardinals got stellar pitching from Jill Hocking (Apple Valley, Minn.) (three-hitter) and Jennifer Gonerka (St. Paul, Minn.) (one-hitter), flawless defense and timely hitting in making the Pipers their 12th and 13th straight conference victim — and there doesn’t appear to be any signs of a let-up in the near-future.
Which isn’t exactly what St. Catherine, Concordia, UW-River Falls, St. Benedict or Bethel wants to hear.
“Our approach (to the final 10 games of the season) is pretty simple — win out,” said Fennern, whose team will begin that quest this afternoon against St. Catherine. “To do that, our focus has to be to make sure to take it one game at a time, one inning at a time, one at-bat at a time.”
Staying focused on the task at hand certainly hasn’t been a problem, even if, on paper, the games should be a walk in the park for the high-powered Cardinals.
“We can’t afford to take anyone lightly,” cautioned Fennern. “There are teams in this conference — St. Catherine, for example — who, the minute you let your guard down, have the potential to stick it to you.
“We know what we have to do, now it’s time for us to go out and do it.”