April 11, 2017- Back in late March when the Cougars scheduled North Central College, they thought it would be a good litmus test to see where their team is at before the first conference weekend.  CUC and North Central were able to complete one game and two and a half innings before the rain started to fall in game two.  In that first game, the Cardinals were able to take game one as the Cougars bats couldn't come to life managing only two runs.  

Before the rain fell in game two, North Central's bats came out firing on all cylinders scoring eight runs leading to an 8-1 lead after the first inning and a half.  The bottom half of the second inning for Concordia-Chicago, they were able to chip on the Cardinals lead.  Marita Van Dyke led off the inning with an infield single.  After a strikeout, Emily Owens and Elizabeth Foxley each had sharp singles to the outfield, however Owens got hit on Foxley's line drive, so the play was called dead and there was two dead for the Cougars.  That didn't kill the CUC momentum as Stefanie D'Anna singled to load the bases for Concordia.  Megan Strong came up big for the Cougars with a double off the center field wall to score all three runners and cut the Cardinals lead to 8-4.

After a clean inning by Julianne Nation, Allison Kruk began the Cougars rally with a one out single to center field.  A Van Dyke walk, and Kristen Landon single brought up Owens.  She did her job with a sac fly to center and cut the lead to 8-5.  With the rain coming down harder with Foxley at the dish, the umpires decided to suspend the game with runners on second and third, two outs, and CUC trailing by three.

A week and a half later, Concordia-Chicago and North Central resumed their game.  Foxley led off the day with a walk to load the bases for the leadoff hitter in D'Anna.  D'Anna hit a soft groundball to the shortstop, but was safe on an error as the first baseman for the Cardinals dropped the ball allowing two runners to score and shrink the lead to one.  Strong came up to clutch again singling through the right side to build on her career day with four RBIs and tie the game up at eight.  

CUC took the lead in the fourth with a Kruk triple down the right field line  The Cardinals players were confused at first as it nearly hit the umpire as he threw his hands in the air to get out of the way, but North Central thought he called a foul ball, so it seemed as if the Cougars caught a break.  Van Dyke delivered the go ahead run on a deep sac fly to left.  Concordia-Chicago added two more insurance runs in the fifth as Strong singled in her fifth run batted in, followed by a Michele Alexander RBI single to give the Cougars an 11-8 lead after five innings.

Nation pitched fantastic in relief going five innings, giving up five hits, allowing no runs, no walks, and striking out two to close out the game and give the Cougars an 11-8 comeback win over the Cardinals.

The Cougars (13-11) return to action Thursday as they host Dominican University in a doubleheader as part of the River Forest Rivalry Cup.  First pitch is set for 12:00pm.