COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. — Saint John's has made a living off late-game heroics this season—the Johnnies entered post-season play having won seven conference games trailing in the game's final two innings.
 
In the opening game of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Playoffs on Thursday, SJU's Max Jackson belted a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth to lift the Johnnies to a 6-5 victory.
 
And, unfortunately for Saint Mary's University of Minnesota baseball coach Nick Winecke, the Johnnies were at it again on Friday.
 
With the Cardinals leading 2-1 heading to the top of the eighth, the Johnnies knotted the game at 2-2 in the eighth, then launched their second ninth-inning home run in as many days, as Jack Stegora belted a Nathan Mathwig (Woodbury, Minn.) offering over the fence in right field for a two-run home run—and a 4-2 victory.
 
"It's a tough way to lose, but no we've got to put it behind us and bounce back," said Winecke, whose team will now face Hamline in an elimination game Friday evening at 7 p.m. "Take away (Bob) Kinne's home run, and we didn't get any big hits.
 
"You gotta hit, and we didn't today."
 
After threatening in each of the first three innings—getting two hits in the first, one in the second, and two more in the third—the Johnnies finally got to Saint Mary's starter Jacob Dawson (Oakdale, Minn.) in the fourth.
 
Jack Wingerd kicked things off with a one-out infield single, moved to second on a walk to Dan Keller, and scored on Gabe MacDonald's RBI single to right. A walk to Jackson loaded the bases, and chased Dawson. Austin Jacobs (Cannon Falls, Minn.) came on to get a pair of fly-ball out to end the threat.
 
The Cardinals did the Johnnies one better in their half of the fourth, as Ben Buerkle (Roseville, Minn.) singled and Bob Kinne (St. Paul, Minn.) launched a two-run, two-out home run—his fifth in the last eight games—to give Saint Mary's its first lead of the game, 2-1.
 
After setting the Johnnies down in order in the fifth, Jacobs found himself staring at a first-and-second, one-out jam in the sixth. But the junior right-hander induced Jackson into a second-to-short-to-first double play to end the inning—and preserve the Cardinals' 2-1 advantage.
 
The Johnnies—who had stranded nine runners through the first seven innings—pulled even, 2-2, in the eighth, getting back-to-back infield singles by Wingerd and Keller, and a ground-rule double by MacDonald.
 
And set up Stegora's ninth-inning heroics.
 
Kinne was the offensive star for the Cardinals, going 2-for-4 with his fourth inning home run and two RBIs, while Jake Mencacci (Wheaton, Ill.) also picked up two hits. Buerkle, Lursen and Cale Pieczynski (Plover, Wis.) accounted for the Cardinals' other three hits off SJU starter Cameron Jurek.