By DONN ADAMSON
Daily Journal Sports Editor

Published: Thursday, April 16, 2009
Updated: Thursday, April 16, 2009 10:08 AM CDT

Having both suffered a few canceled games due to weather, the Cardinals baseball team and the Lady Cardinals softball team went in opposite directions on Wednesday as the men headed South to Poplar Bluff to take on rival Three Rivers and the women headed North to play St. Charles. The Cardinals split their doubleheader, and the Lady Cardinals won both ends of their duo games.

Three Rivers 6, Mineral Area 0

Mineral Area 9, Three Rivers 1

POPLAR BLUFF — Aaron Blunt allowed only three earned runs in his four innings of work, but the Cardinals could only muster three hits against the Three Rivers pitcher and they were shut out 6-0 in game one.

Blake Pinnon and Jimmy Thompson both hit a single and Richie Stanley hit a double for Mineral Area.

In game two, the Cardinals bats fared much better as they drummed out nine hits to back pitcher Chance Cleveland for a 9-1 win.

Cleveland struck out 10 batters and gave up only three hits, making only one bad pitch which a Three Rivers batter deposited over the fence for the Raiders only run.

Thompson tripled that amount with his home run in the seventh which put the game way for good. Thompson’s home run gave him four RBI in the game. Drew Pixley and Nick Cox both had two hits and both drove in two runs.Mike Bigogno and Dustin Hunter had one single each.

The Cardinals (16-20) will host St. Charles in a doubleheader this afternoon starting at 1 p.m.

SOFTBALL

Mineral Area 8, St. Charles 0

Mineral Area 8, St. Charles 2

ST. CHARLES — With their two wins on Wednesday, the Lady Cardinals have been on fire, winning 16 of their last 20 ball games and boasting a 26-15 record so far. They will try to add to that today when they travel to Union to play East Central Missouri.

With a stellar Lady Cardinals defense behind her, Jackie Higdon pitched her fourth shut-out of the season, striking out only five batters, but allowing only two hits.

Hannah Hummel drove in two runs and scored two with a double and triple in the game. Marilyn Oquendo hit two doubles and Amy Allgier had one with three RBI between them. Kelly Kruse hit two singles in the game.

Kayla Reuss had a rough start in game two, giving up two runs in the first inning, but she acclimated to the foreign mound and allowed only six hits to the host team in posting an 8-2 win.

Jessica Bartlett supplied the run-power with a 4-4 performance which included two doubles and a two-run home run to drive in half of MAC’s runs.

Allgier remained hot with the bat with two singles, and Robyn Pashia and Kruse each had one single.

The Lady Cardinals are now 11-2 in Division 2 Region 16 play and they are 11-4 in the MCCAC conference.