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Strong hitting from junior Kayla Boward helped the St. Thomas softball team (22-4 overall, 8-0 MIAC) reach a 12-game winning streak Thursday in a doubleheader against Concordia-Moorhead (0-16 overall, 0-2 MIAC).

The Tommies had a 9-1, 8-2 home sweep against the Cobbers.

Senior Biz Sitzmann pitched four innings in the first game, allowing no walks and only one run. Senior Cassie Smith took the mound in the second game and pitched for four innings, allowing no walks, one run and eight strikeouts.

“Our pitching is not as dominant as we’ve had, although today was a very dominating outing by Cassie,” coach John Tschida said.

Boward went 4-5 from the plate for the day and improved to a .396 batting average. Senior Chandran Duffy, sophomore Alyssa Dunrud and senior Becky Eischens all went 2-3 in the first game. Fourteen St. Thomas players had hits between both games.

“Everyone on the team, all 30 players really are great hitters,” senior outfielder Erica Wilson said. “We have a lot of people that we can depend on to get hits in key situations.”

Concordia-Moorhead posted its only score in the first game during the first inning. St. Thomas responded with an RBI from senior Sydney Marquardt, resulting in a run from Dunrud.

“Hitting-wise we were a little slow to get it going and once we got our base-running … the hitting picked up after that,” Tschida said.

The third and fourth innings were heavy with scoring from St. Thomas players.

Duffy scored in the third inning, followed by a triple by Eischens. Dunrud scored a second time and Eischens followed through with a run resulting from a Cobbers throwing error. St. Thomas followed a strong third inning with five hits and four runs in the fourth inning. Duffy ended the game with a score during the sixth inning.

Despite the first game’s blowout, St. Thomas maintained its intensity in the second game.

“Concordia is one of the lower teams in the conference, so it’s tough to expect us to have lots of energy,” Wilson said. “But that’s definitely what we strive for.”

The first inning in game two remained scoreless, but St. Thomas posted four runs and four hits in the second inning. Hoffman singled to center field and had an RBI, advancing Boward to second and allowing sophomore Megan Sitek to score. Hoffman eventually scored later in the second inning, along with Boward and Duffy.

The third inning was more of the same. St. Thomas scored another four runs and had five hits. Senior Sydney Marquardt also had two RBIs.

Junior Kristen Feisel pitched for the last three innings. The Cobbers scored the last run of the game during the seventh inning.

“We’ve been working our butt off, just don’t take any team lightly and working as hard as you possibly can,” Boward said. “[It] doesn’t matter who it is, just play up to our potential.”

Boward added that situational hitting and “when there’s runners on, hitting the ball the other way and keeping it down” are skills the team has been focusing on.

Tischida emphasized the importance of hitting for the team.

“Hitting is something we know we have to do in order to move on out of the conference,” Tischida said. “We’ve been behind almost every game that we’ve played, so we kind of know that as hitters.”

In order to prepare for opponents, Tischida said, “We always just say the next team’s our toughest [competitor], because as soon as you think you look past someone, that’s where you get in trouble.”

He added, “We don’t take anybody for granted.”

The Tommies play at 1 p.m. Saturday, April 9, at Hamline .

Rachel Britton can be reached at brit7192@stthomas.edu.