MARSHALL, Minn. - On one of the first true spring afternoons of the season, Concordia-St. Paul (26-11-1, 9-9 NSIC) secured a road split at Southwest Minnesota State (16-23, 8-8 NSIC), falling 5-4 in eight innings in game one before picking up a 6-1 game two victory at Mustang Field.

While it's the third-straight Northern Sun split for the Golden Bears, it's also the third-straight doubleheader where Concordia has had an extra inning contest, winning one and dropping the last two extra inning outings. On the year, Concordia is 2-2 in extra inning games.

With the split against fellow .500 club SMSU, the two teams are in a tie for seventh in the league standings heading into the weekend where Concordia will entertain MSU Moorhead (6-27, 3-15 NSIC) in its home opener on Saturday at 1 p.m. followed by welcoming Northern State (11-29, 3-15 NSIC) to town on Sunday at noon at Carlander Field. Saturday's game is set for senior day, as CSP honors its three graduating seniors between games against the Dragons.

GAME 1: SMSU 5, CSP 4 (8 innings)
The Golden Bears rallied first, as Amanda Parsons and Sydney Pelzer led off the second inning with back-to-back doubles, with Pelzer coming in to score on a sacrifice bunt later in the inning. SMSU picked up a run in the bottom of the inning, with CSP carrying a 2-1 lead early on.

The Mustangs would take their first lead in the third with a pair of runs, and added another for a 4-1 lead in the fourth.

Meanwhile, SMSU was keeping CSP off the bases, retiring 10 straight Golden Bears in the third, fourth and fifth innings.

Heading into the late innings, Concordia rallied again as Alexus Houston led off the sixth inning with a double followed by a Grace Beseman single with Parsons being hit by pitch for a team-high eighth time to load the bases with no outs. A pair of sacrifice flies, by Pelzer and Jacey Defries, knotted the game at 4-4.

Game one starting pitcher Bryanna Olson clamped down, allowing only a 2-out walk in the sixth before a 1-2-3 seventh to push the game into extra innings.

But the Golden Bears left runners on first and second with one out in the eighth inning, setting up the Mustangs to secure the walk-off win.

Olson fell to 15-6 with the loss, going the distance (7.0+), allowing five runs (four earned) on seven hits with four strikeouts.

Parsons went 2-3 with her 13th double, and the 2-3-4 hitters in the lineup each scored a run while Pelzer was 1-2 with her eighth double and a pair of RBIs and a run and Defries drove in a pair of runs, one on a sacrifice bunt and the other on a sacrifice fly.

GAME 2: CSP 6, SMSU 1
In game two, it was all Golden Bears, who used small ball in the fourth to grab the first lead. Back-to-back singles to start the inning by Sydney Pelzer and Danni Sharum started the threat, with Pelzer and pinch runner Rachel Novak moving to second and third on Payton Hanson's sacrifice bunt. With one out, Taylor Griffin dropped down an RBI bunt single for the game's first run.

The 1-0 lead might as well have been insurmountable at that point behind the performance from left handed starting pitcher Erica McCullough, who allowed only a single through the first four innings and only one runner into scoring position through the first five frames as she scattered a pair of singles and no walks through 5.0 scoreless innings.

In the top of the sixth, CSP moved past the small ball and used power to create a big inning, starting with a leadoff double by Amanda Parsons, her 14th of the year. A walk gave CSP runners on first and second with no outs before the next two hitters were retired. With two outs, a walk to Emma Lero loaded the bases with pinch hitter Avery Johnson delivering a 2-run double to center field. It was followed by Clara Heislen's 11th home run, a three-run shot to right center to give Concordia a 6-0 lead and a 5-run inning, all with two outs.

McCullough finally ran into trouble in the sixth, allowing a pair of singles to start the inning and an error allowing a run to score, but she worked to limit the damage, retiring the next two batters to strand a pair of runners on base while preserving a 6-1 lead.

She allowed a stray single in the seventh to pick up the win, evening her record at 5-5 in the complete game, allowing a run on five hits - all singles, with no walks and two strikeouts.

Sharum had the team's lone 2-hit game individually, going 2-2, as the team had nine total hits by eight different players.