ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Concordia-St. Paul softball team (12-28, 6-14 NSIC) dropped two games in dramatic fashion against U-Mary (14-26, 8-13 NSIC) at Carlander Field on Saturday afternoon.
 
U-Mary 8, Concordia-St. Paul 5 (9 inn.)
The Golden Bears sat one out away from claiming a game one victory for four straight hitters as the Marauders rallied late to force extra innings before scoring three in the ninth to hand CSP a tough loss.
 
Demaree Rodriguez and Taylor Mendez each delivered two-out, two-run homers in the seventh to tie it up before Mendez contributed the game-winner with a three-run shot in the ninth.
 
Junior Linzy Heim (8-14) had a tremendous start spoiled as she had allowed just a run on five hits through the first 6.2 innings. She finished the game with seven strikeouts in her 9.0 innings of work.
 
Elena Koncar had a big game at the plate for Concordia as she hit her first homer of the season, a three-run shot, and added a single.
 
Justine Schattner picked up three hits while Jamie Fleischhacker also added a pair of hits as she scored twice.
 
MeLanie Rodriguez started for the Marauders and worked the first 5.0 innings before Taylor Lara (4-5) worked 4.0 shutout innings for the win.
 
The Golden Bears broke through in the first as the first three hitters reached base safely to load the bases with nobody out. Liz Jarosz followed with an RBI groundout, but the next two hitters were retired as the lone run crossed the plate.
 
U-Mary evened it up in their half of the third as Alana Norman drew a leadoff walk before Amber Gamboa delivered a double to the gap to tie it up at 1-1.
 
An inning later in the fourth, Hart and Swenson set the table with back-to-back singles before Elena Koncar hit a high fly ball to left that bounced off the top of the wall and over for a three-run homer. Fleischhacker added a single later in the inning and Justine Schattner roped a single to the left center gap to bring the score to 5-1.
 
The Marauders completed an improbable comeback as Norman beat out an infield single with two outs before Demaree Rodriguez cut the CSP lead in half. Another single up the middle for Amber Gamboa set the stage for Taylor Mendez to deposit her 11^th homer of the year out to right center to tie it up at 5-5.
 
The score remained there until the top of the ninth when Mendez stepped in with a pair of runners on base and launched her second home run of the game to give U-Mary their first lead of the game at 8-5.
 
U-Mary 9, Concordia-St. Paul 8
The Marauders handed the Golden Bears a heart-breaking loss for the second game in a row as Concordia stormed back to take the lead in the bottom of the sixth only to see U-Mary scored twice in the top of the seventh to regain the lead and claim the win.
 
CSP trailed by as many as four runs, including a three-run deficit heading into the sixth, before Linzy Heim hit a dramatic three run homer to give Concordia an 8-7 lead, but solo homers from Shawnee Zink and Lex Hubbard in the seventh proved to be the difference.
 
The homer was Heim's first of her career as she took advantage of her lone trip to the plate after entering the game for Haley Schanks in the circle. In relief of Schanks, Heim (8-15) took a tough luck loss as the only two baserunners she allowed in her 3.0 innings of work were the two solo homers as she struck out a pair in the process.
 
Liz Jarosz and Carlie Hart were the only Golden Bears to finish with multi-hit games as Jarosz went 3-4 with a pair of runs scored while Hart went 2-4 with an RBI and a run scored. In total, nine of CSP's ten hitters that came to the plate collected at least one hit in the game.
 
U-Mary picked up where they left off to start the second game as the first two hitters reached base and came around to score as Amber Gamboa hit a sacrifice fly, Taylor Mendez drove an RBI double and Shawnee Zink added a run scoring single to quickly make it 3-0.
 
Concordia trimmed two runs off that deficit in the second as one-out singles from Lizzy Swenson and Carlie Hart set up two-out RBI singles from Jamie Fleischhacker and Nicole Thompson as the Golden Bears closed the gap.
 
The Marauders answered right back with three in the third as Mendez went deep for the third time on the day before Colleen Crutchfield sent a two-run blast down the left field line to push their advantage to four at 6-2.
 
Liz Jarosz and Haley Schanks got a CSP rally going in their half of the inning with a single and a double, respectively, before a sacrifice fly off the bat of Sarah Kivisto and a double off the bat of Hart brought them both home.
 
Gamboa gave U-Mary an insurance run back in the fourth as she singled in Demaree Rodriguez to bring the score to 7-4.
 
That lead wouldn't last as Kelly McKenzie led off the sixth with a triple before Fleischhacker drove her in with a groundout. Thompson followed with a walk and Jarosz singled with one out before Heim stepped in to provide the heroics with her homer to dead center to temporarily put CSP on top.
 
Zink quickly erased that lead as she led off the seventh with a solo shot just over the wall in center and after the next two hitters were retired, Lex Hubbard gave the Marauders the lead for good with a line drive homer to left.
 
CSP is back in action tomorrow for Senior Day as they host Minot State.