By DONNY NADEAU
Saint Mary's Sports Information Director
 
CLERMONT, Fla. — The Saint Mary's University of Minnesota got its day off to a rousing start, scoring three runs in the top of the fourth inning en route to a 4-2 win over Johnson & Wales.
 
If only the Cardinals could have ended the day in similar fashion.
 
Saint Mary's put together another big innings—a four-run third—against Milwaukee School of Engineering in their second game of the day. Problem was, that was the only inning the Cardinals would push a run across, as the Raiders cruised to a 7-4 victory.
 
Saint Mary's and Johnson & Wales traded solo runs in the third—the Cardinals' coming on a Haley Vanourney (Marion, Iowa) two-run single—before SMU took charge in the fourth.
 
Paige Gudmundson (Plainview, Minn.) and Tara Nikolich (Chicago, Ill.) opened the fourth with back-to-back singles, and Brittney Birkhauser (Wisconsin Rapids, Wis.) followed with an RBI double. Amber Chow (West St. Paul, Minn.) lifted a run-scoring sacrifice fly to plate Nikolich with the second run of the inning, and Birkhauser scored on a wild pitch to give Saint Mary's a 4-1 advantage.
 
The Wildcats scratched across a run in the sixth, but that was as close as they would get.
 
Gudmundson and Vanourney each recorded two hits, while Nikolich, Birkhauser, Chow, and Justine Schultz (Winona, Minn.) accounted for the Cardinals' other four hits. Chow picked up her first collegiate pitching win, tossing a complete game—allowing two earned runs on eight hits, while striking out three.
 
In their second game of the day, MSOE got to Cardinals' starter Amber Trendle (Chicago, Ill.) in the second inning, getting a one-out single and back-to-back walks to load the bases. Trendle got Riley Rossbach to strike out, but then walked Rachel Ziemba to score MSOE's first run, and Gabi Roderman stole home behind her to push the lead to 2-0.
 
MSOE padded its lead to 3-0 on an Emily Snow RBI double to left, but the Cardinals came storming back in their half of the third.
 
Vanourney opened the inning with a double to left and moved to third on Mia Lloyd's (Minneapolis, Minn.) single to right. One out later, Nikolich laced a run-scoring single to left and Birkhauser followed with an RBI double. Allie Borawski (Stickney, Ill.) lifted a sacrifice fly to right to score Nikolich, and Chow delivered Saint Mary's fourth run with a single to plate Birkhauser.
 
The lead did not last long, however, as MSOE pulled even with a solo run in the fifth, then put the game out of reach with three runs in the sixth.
 
Birkhauser and Lloyd each finished with two hits to pace Saint Mary's nine-hit attack, with Chow, Vanourney, Nikolich, Schultz, and Gudmundson collecting the other five Cardinal hits.
 
The Cardinals (2-4 overall) are back in action on Thursday, squaring off against Adrian (9 a.m. EST) and Neumann (11:30 a.m. EST) in a pair of nonconference games in Clermont, Fla.