Saints Softball Sets Program Record For Consecutive Wins

Apr 28, 2012

Northland Sports Online

The St. Scholastica softball team now holds a program record of consecutive games won, 19, as it finished the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC) Crossover hosted by Northland College with an 11-3 victory over Presentation College in game one and then a 5-4 walk-off victory via a Bonnie Kowalczyk (Menomonee Falls, Wis. /Menomonee Falls HS) home run against Minnesota-Morris in the afternoon contest on Saturday.

In the first game of the day against Presentation (12-28, 8-13 UMAC), the CSS Saints fell behind early 3-0 in the first two innings before plating a run in the bottom of the second inning. CSS then scored five more runs in the third inning and never let the PC Saints back into the game as CSS went onto win 11-3 in five innings.

Barb Malyuk (Ashland, Wis. /Ashland HS) earned the pitching victory for CSS, scattering seven hits in the 16 batters she faced. Darcy Roach (East Grand Forks, Minn. /Sacred Heart HS) came in relief for two innings, striking out two batters.

Offensively, the CSS Saints were led by Theresa Tauer (Plymouth, Minn. /Wayzata HS), Molly Jazdzewski (Duluth, Minn. /Duluth Central HS), and Kowalczyk each with two hits apiece and five combined runs batted in. Kali Carlson (Duluth, MN/Duluth Central HS) had a hit, a stolen base, and two runs scored for the Saints as well.

In game two against Minnesota-Morris (16-17, 13-7 UMAC), both teams scored in the first inning to make it 1-1. The Saints and Cougars then would both be held in check offensively until the fifth inning when Morris would plate a run off of an error. Morris struck again with a two run RBI double by Molly Olson. The Saints would answer with three runs of their own in the bottom of the inning coming off of a RBI-double by Merryssa Tiedeman (Zumbrota, MN/Zumbrota-Mazeppa HS) and a RBI-triple from Malyuk.

Then in the bottom of the seventh inning, Kowalczyk hit a solo home run to right-center field to give the Saints a program record 19th straight win as the Saints won 5-4.

Andrea Wick (New Prague, Minn. /New Prague HS) pitched a complete game from the mound, earning her third victory of the year. She scattered four hits and struck out a career-high 12 batters, but also walked 12 batters as well.

Offensively, the Saints were led by Kowalczyk with two hits. Seven other batters had a hit on the day for the Saints who finished with nine hits.

The Saints (29-8, 20-1 UMAC) take their program best 19 game win streak on the road this week as they travel to Gustavus Adolphus College on Monday for a doubleheader with the first game scheduled to start at 5 pm local time. Tune into csssaints.com for updates from that game.

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