(April 17, 2010 - Ann Arbor, Mich) - The Concordia softball team entered this week looking to climb up the conference standings with games against Siena Heights and UM Dearborn. After playing solid back-to-back games against Siena Heights on Friday, the Cardinals went 0-3 against UMD on Saturday at Cardinal Field.

On Friday, the Cardinals would take advantage of a solid pitching day by sophomore Jeni Bollenbacher (Edwardsburgh, Mich) to sweep the Saints and take a 3-1 series lead. Bollenbacher would give up only one run on nine innings of work on the day.

The Cardinals would start the opening game scoring a run in the first inning off a double by Hannah Sabol (Fr - Shelby Twp, Mich) that scored Katie Gallan (Jr - LaSalle, Mich) who reached on a bunt single. The Saints (4-12, 16-28) would score a run of their own in the bottom half of the inning to tie the game.

The score would remain knotted at one until the top of the sixth when Sabol would collect her second double of the day to lead off the inning. After a Grace Muller (Fr - Onsted, Mich) sacrifice bunt moved Sabol to second, sophomore Breannae King (Garden City, Mich) would hit an infield single to score Sabol and collect the game winning RBI.

After Bollenbacher pitched herself out of a jam in the bottom of the sixth that left three Siena Heights runners on base, Concordia would score a run for good measure in the top of the seventh. Gallen would reach home on an error after reaching on a single and stealing both second and third base.

Concordia would retire the Saints on three straight outs in the bottom half of the seventh to earn the much needed win. In all, the Cardinals would collect six timely hits to win 3-1.

In the second game of the day the Cardinals would use a big seventh inning to earn the sweep against the Saints winning 6-1. Bollenbacher pitched one of her best games of the season giving up only one run on nine hits, 5 strikeouts and only one free pass.

After a scoreless first inning, Muller would double to left center to score Sabol who had reached on a walk. The Saints would score their lone run of the game in the bottom half of the second to make the score 2-1.

The score would remain 2-1 until the Cardinals exploded in the top half of the seventh for four runs on two hits and two errors. The big hit once again came off the bat of Sabol as she would connect for her third double of the day that would score Karen Greficz (So - Garden City, Mich), Gallan, and Bollenbacher. The two wins pushed the Cardinal record to 3-12 in the WHAC and 8-23 overall.

The Cardinals would unfortunately be victims of a sweep at the hands of UM Dearborn on Saturday as they would lose to the Wolves 7-6 and 11-2 (5 innings). The two teams also played one inning to finish up the previously suspended game from March 31. The Cards would also lose that game by a score of 5-4.

With still 10 games left in the regular season, Concordia finds themselves one game out of sixth place heading into a rematch with Madonna (11-1, 27-6) on Wednesday in Livonia.  Game one of the double header will begin at 4pm.