ST. JOSEPH, Minn. – The St. Olaf College softball team slugged its way to a 15-9 victory in game two to gain a split after the College of Saint Benedict took game one, 8-3, in a split to begin Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) play on Tuesday at CSB Softball Field.

After Saint Ben's (11-9, 1-1 MIAC) broke a 1-1 tie with a five-run bottom of the fifth and went on to take the opener, St. Olaf (8-10, 1-1 MIAC) scored multiple runs in five consecutive innings in game two, which was called after the sixth inning due to darkness. Per MIAC rules, the game goes into the books as an official game since more than five innings were completed and the score was not tied.

The Oles' 15 runs in game two were their most ever in a game against the Bennies, surpassing the 11 scored in an 11-9 home win on April 21, 2022. The victory was just the second for St. Olaf in the last 10 meetings, as Saint Ben's had won six in a row in the series before last year's split.

St. Olaf was scheduled to head back on the road for a doubleheader at Concordia-Moorhead on Wednesday, April 8, but those games have been postponed due to unplayable field conditions in Moorhead. The next scheduled games for the Oles are a doubleheader at Bethel University at 1 and 3 p.m. on Saturday, April 11.

Saint Ben's 8, St. Olaf 3 | Box Score

After St. Olaf tied the game with a run in the top of the fifth, Saint Ben's put up five runs in the bottom of the inning and two more in the sixth on its way to the 8-3 win. Seven Oles had one hit apiece in the loss.

Juniors Regan Zak, Jill Arp, and Rylan Nakamura had one hit and one RBI apiece for St. Olaf off Ellie Peterson, who went the distance in the circle for the Bennies. Peterson worked around giving up seven hits and two walks while striking out five in the win.

Lauren Freeberg led off the bottom of the second with a solo home run to give Saint Ben's a lead that the Bennies maintained until the fifth. The hosts threatened to add to their lead in the bottom of the third, but senior Roxanne Ring got the final three batters to escape a bases-loaded, nobody-out jam.

In the top of the fifth, Hokanson led off with a single to right, moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by Narum, and scored on Arp's double to right to tie the game. Saint Ben's responded with a leadoff home run in the next half inning to start a five-run frame for the Bennies, who tacked on two more runs in the sixth to extend their lead to 8-1.

St. Olaf got its offense going in the top of the seventh before Saint Ben's finished off the win. With runners on first and second and two outs, Nakamura and Zak delivered back-to-back RBI singles to make it an 8-3 game with the bases still loaded before a strikeout accounted for the final out.

St. Olaf 15, Saint Ben's 9 (6 inn.) | Box Score

First year Hannah Yaeger led the offensive onslaught for St. Olaf in game two by matching the single-game program record with six thanks to a grand slam and a two-run double. The Oles scored between two and four runs in each inning from the second through the sixth in the darkness-shortened win.

Yaeger's six-RBI performance marked the third time in recorded program history that an Ole knocked in six runs in a game, joining Alex Lebens against Saint Ben's on April 26, 2014 and Hannah Matthies '21 against Augsburg on April 11, 2021.

Six other Oles joined Yaeger with multi-hit games, including first year Joy Jung, who was 4-for-5 with tw doubles, two runs scored, and three RBI. Zak was 3-for-3 with a double, three runs scored, and three RBI, while junior Kyra Narum was 3-for-4 with a walk and two runs scored.

Sophomore Amelia Burns collected the second win of her career after throwing 4.1 innings of relief of senior Madyn Singleton. The 4.1 innings marked the second-longest outing of Burns' career behind a 5.1-inning outing in her collegiate debut against UW-La Crosse on Feb. 22, 2025.

After Saint Ben's got a run in the bottom of the first, St. Olaf pushed across three runs in the next half inning on a two-out, run-scoring single by Zak followed by a two-run double by senior Belle Schmidt. The lead did not last long, however, as the Bennies answered with four runs in the bottom of the fourth.

A two-out, two-run double by Zak in the top of the third tied the game at 5-5, but Saint Ben's went back on top with a run in the bottom of the third. Consecutive two-out hits from Hokanson and Jung gave the Oles a 7-6 lead, which also did not last long, as the Bennies scored three runs in the home half of the fourth to lead 9-7 after four.

St. Olaf put together back-to-back four-run innings in the fifth and sixth innings, with Yaeger's grand slam – her first collegiate home run – accounting for all of the scoring in the fifth. After a clean bottom of the fifth from Burns, Yaeger and Jung provided two-run doubles in the sixth for the final runs of the game. Burns got a grounder back to the circle to start a 1-2-3 double play to get out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the bottom of the sixth before the game was called due to darkness.