The concordia softball team opened the 2006 season with a 4-0 win over um duluth and a 4-3 come-from-behind win over upper iowa at the husky dome classic in st. Cloud on saturday.

against former nsic-rival um-duluth, senior all-american kristen schmidt (left) pitched a three-hit shutout, striking out 11. Concordia scored all four of its runs in the fourth inning, highlighted by a mallory olson (right) three-run home run to lead the bears.

for the game, concordia had six hits, five of them being singles. Junior nikki smith went 2-3 and scored a run.

in the second game of the day against upper iowa, concordia had ten singles and left 15 runners on base but managed to score two runs on a kristin linell hit, that was ruled an error, in the seventh inning to force the extra innings. Both teams would score in the eighth.

kristen schmidt came in in the ninth inning to get three outs and the bears would earn the win in the ninth inning when tracie enzler would single in smith.

vanessa dufresne went 3-4 and scored a run, and amanda yurek and smith each had two hits in the win.

for the day, nikki smith (left) went 4-7, while both yurek and dufresne picked up three hits. Schmidt earned the wins in both games and is 2-0 on the season.

the bears will be in action again tomorrow at the husky dome classic when they play washburn at 8:00 and st. Cloud state at 12:00.