Top 10 ranked Missouri-St. Louis, the preseason #1 team in the Great Lakes Valley Conference softball poll, lived up to their billing on Sunday in downing the Cardinals 14-1 and 10-3 in Liberty.

The third-ranked Tritons (25-3 overall, 10-2 in the GLVC) hit 13 homeruns and had 28 total hits in the two games.

The day started poorly for Jewell (17-10, 5-7) with starting pitcher Nona Pauline giving up 10 runs on eight hits in the first inning to take the loss (7-6).  The Cardinals were able to rally for a run in the bottom of the first on a Maddie Giles RBI, but the Tritons won the five inning game by adding a single run in the second and fourth innings, and two more in the fifth inning.

Jewell had only two hits in the first game.

In game two, things started better for Jewell as the Cardinals took a 1-0 lead on Kelsey Morgan's solo home run in the second inning.  UMSL, though, came back with four runs in the next half inning and added one more in the fourth, two in the fifth, one in the sixth and two runs in the seventh inning.  The Cardinals had seven hits, including an RBI double by Brooke Bernard and another double by Shelby McGraw, who also suffered the complete game loss in the pitching circle (6-3).

Even with the lopsided losses, the Cardinals had just two errors in the games.

Jewell returns to conference action Tuesday at Rockhurst University, before returning to the Spratt Sports Complex for doubleheaders on Friday and Saturday.