ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Concordia-St. Paul softball team (8-20, 2-6 NSIC) bounced back to win game two 5-2 after dropping game one 11-0 to claim a split with Southwest Minnesota State (7-18, 3-5 NSIC) on Tuesday afternoon at Carlander Field.
 
Southwest Minnesota State 11, Concordia-St. Paul (5 inn.)
The Golden Bears were held to just three hits by SMSU starter Alex O'Connor while the Mustangs put 11 on the board to end game one in five.
 
O'Connor (4-7) struck out seven in the five-inning shutout as she walked one to face four hitters over the minimum in the win.
 
Taylor Koloc, Mackenzie Clouse and Jazmyne Neely all homered for Southwest Minnesota State to lead the offensive attack.
 
The Mustangs set the tone in the first inning as Clouse drove in a run with a single before Taylor Chavez drove in another with a single of her own to make it 2-0.
 
SMSU broke it open in the third as a Neely squeeze opened the scoring before a bunt single followed by an errant throw brought in another. Taylor Koloc then stepped in and deposited one over the wall in left to make it a five-run inning to extend the lead to 7-0.
 
In the fourth, Clouse added a solo shot while Neely hit a two-run homer before a Karmann Carroll RBI single rounded out the scoring.
 
Haley Schanks (2-10) took the loss in the circle for CSP as she struck out a pair in her five innings of work.
 
Nicole Thompson laid down a perfect base hit bunt in the first for Concordia while Schanks chipped in a single in the second and Schattner added in the third to account for the Golden Bears' three hits.
 
Concordia-St. Paul 5, Southwest Minnesota State 2
It was the duo of Linzy Heim and Justine Schattner that carried the load and brought CSP's four-game losing streak to an end in the second game of the day.
 
Heim (6-10) did a nice job keeping the Mustangs off-balance as she held the SMSU offense to a pair of run on seven hits as she struck out four and walked two. Her win, coupled with her shutout on Saturday, bookended a four day stretch in which the junior threw 28 innings for Concordia.
 
At the plate, Justine Schattner collected all five RBI for Concordia as she went 2-3 with a homer in the big performance. The home run was her third of the season while the five RBI pushed her team-leading mark to 27. In addition, the two hits improved her season average to .396.
 
Fellow middle infielder Nicole Thompson also had a nice game for the Golden Bears as she picked up two hits to extend her hit streak to five and on-base streak to 10 while moving her average up to .425 as well.
 
Athena Golling started for SMSU but game one starter Alex O'Connor (4-8) came on in relief and took the loss as she allowed four of Concordia's five runs on 3.2 innings of work.
 
The Mustangs struck first again in game two as saw three straight hitters reach base with two outs, capped by a Taylor Chavez run-scoring single to make it 1-0.
 
That score held until the third when the Golden Bears broke through at the plate. Kelly McKenzie and Jamie Fleischhacker hit back-to-back one-out singles to chase starter Athena Golling to get things going in the inning. Nicole Thompson followed with another bunt single but after an errant throw by the catcher skipped out to left field, the Mustangs manage to gun down McKenzie at the plate for the second out of the inning. With the two runners moving up to second and third, Justine Schattner stepped up and drove a single up the middle to give Concordia their first lead of the day at 2-1.
 
As Heim continued to cruise, the Golden Bears added to their advantage with three more runs in the fifth. A walk for McKenzie followed by a two-out infield single for Thompson set the stage for Schattner once again as she crushed the second pitch she saw over the left field fence to extend it to 5-1.
 
That would be more than enough for Heim as she allowed just a solo homer off the bat of Karmann Carroll to lead off the seventh the rest of the way to preserve a 5-2 victory and salvage the split.