mankato, minn. - sound pitching and clutch hitting gave concordia a doubleheader sweep of the region's #2 team, minnesota state on thursday afternoon. Cu won game one 6-4 in 10 innings and sealed up a 3-1 win in regulation to close out a very successful day. Pitchers cassye mcmahon and ashley kluever combined for 16.2 innings of work without forfeiting an earned run and the cu offense out-hit the mavericks 20-11. The golden bears retain their hold of #2 in the nsic with a 22-8 overall and 10-2 nsic record. The mavericks are 19-9 overall and 5-5 in the league. The golden bears return home on saturday to host st. Cloud state. There will be a special dedication ceremony of the new carlander field at 12:00 pm with the games to follow. game 1 box - game 2 box

game 1
the golden bears out-hit the mavericks 11 to 6 in the opening game of the series on thursday afternoon, but it took an extra inning comeback to secure the 6-4 win. With the game tied up 4-4, tiff rodd tripled to right field on one out and notched the go-ahead run off of a jamie lindboe single to the outfield. The rodd three-bagger kept alive the senior's hitting streak, which now stands at eight games.

the 10th inning continued with freshman missie feuerbach doubling and scoring lindboe for an insurance run. cassye mcmahon, who came into the game in relief during the first inning, got out of trouble in the bottom of the inning and stranded msu runners on second and third to take the win, her sixth of the season. Mcmahon struck out four batters.

the win for the golden bears was a comeback effort. A three-run homer off of the bat of clean-up hitter kelsey thompson in the first inning gave the mavericks a 3-1 lead, also forcing a pitching change that put mcmahon in the circle. Msu's lead increased to 4-1 with an unearned notch in the second due to a calli brennan error. Brennan redeemed herself in the third inning, however, sending a triple to right field to drive in a run. The hit was brennan's second of the game. The sophomore had an rbi single, triple and double in her first three at-bats of the day.

concordia tied the game up with a well-struck fifth inning, the team's first three batters putting up two doubles and a single to set the score at 4-4.

brennan had three hits in the win and also drove in three runs.

game 2
another tense and extremely important win was to come for the golden bears. Again playing from behind, concordia scored three unanswered runs in the last five innings. Pitcher ashley kluever threw her fifth straight complete game win, this one without handing over an earned run. Her outs were split evenly between strikeouts, ground outs and fly outs, the k total running up to seven to get her to a 7-2 record.

with the maverick offense being tamed by kluever, the golden bears had time to mount a gradual comeback. A tiff rodd infield single allowed katie anderson to score in the third and a nikki scherr single up the middle scored sami mattson for the go-ahead 2-1 run in the fourth. Although another run would not be needed for the win, abby brundidge's hit and rbi in the seventh not only gave cu a 3-1 lead, but extended her hitting streak to a current team high of nine games.

anna bjorlin and calli brennan led the team with two hits each in the late game. Kluever gave up just five hits to the mavericks. Msu, averaging 5.35 runs per game, scored just five total runs in the doubleheader with concordia.