Junior brenden furrow's (johnston, iowa) steal of home plate scored the game winning run in the bottom of the ninth inning for concordia university (25-14), who defeated southwest minnesota state (24-19) 2-1 on thursday afternoon in the first round of the nsic tournament held in wayne, neb. box score

junior jake schmidt (oakdale, minn.) improved to 7-0, pitching a complete game with nine strikeouts, scattering eight hits and two walks despite 134 pitches (94) strikes. Schmidt now has 87 strikeouts and is in sole possession of hte single season school strikeout record. His era improved to 2.77 in 65.0 innings on the season.

the golden bears were facing smsu right hander adam schrader, who took a one hit shutout into the ninth inning.

junior chris herbert (white bear lake, minn.), who had the only prior hit for cu, a single to left in the sixth inning to break up schrader's no hitter, drilled a shot headed for left field to leadoff the inning.

smsu shortstop lex reinke jumped up and seemingly made a great catch in the hole, however the ball fell out of the webbing of his glove, allowing herbert to reach safely with his second hit of the ball game.

furrow followed herbert by lacing a single to right center, moving herbert up to third on the play, giving the golden bears the tying run 90 feet from the plate with senior john maciej (elk river, minn.) up at the plate.

the first pitch was wild, allowing furrow to reach second base while herbert held at third.

maciej, second on the team in rbi on the season, looked to find the right center gap. With the ball en route and maciej looking for extra bases, defensive replacement corey neale layed out and made a game changing catch in the gap.

herbert trotted home, however as maciej picked up his 43rd rbi of the year, tying the game at two while furrow advanced to third base with just one out, 90 feet from a first round win.

junior chris kimpton (canberra, australia) stepped up to the plate, and took the first two pitches to get ahead in the count. With a 2-0 count, kimpton bluffed a suicide squeeze bunt attempt, taking the pitch down the middle for a strike.

on the 2-1 pitch, everyone knew what was coming. Kimpton pulled back on his second suicide squeeze attempt with furrow sprinting towards home. Schrader's 2-1 curveball fell low and away and mustang catcher doug stearns had to shift to his right to stop it.

as stearns was focused on securing the ball, furrow slid safely across the front of the plate in front of the freshman backstop.

as soon as home plate umpire chad eischens made the safe call, the cu dugout erupted.

schrader, meanwhile, finished with 118 pitches, throwing a complete game, 8.1 innings, allowing three hits and four walks while striking out nine. He falls to 4-5 with the loss.

herbert finished 2-4 while furrow was 1-2 with two stolen bases.

concordia stranded a runner on second in the second inning, a runner on third in the third, had a runner picked off first in the fifth and stranded first and second in the sixth. For the game, cu left five on base.

smsu meanwhile couldn't get the big hit, leaving nine runners on, including five in scoring position and stranding a leadoff triple in the seventh inning and having a runner cut down at home in the eighth.

concordia resumes their quest for an nsic tournament title tomorrow at 4 p.m. When they face bemidji state, the no. 5 seed, who defeated no. 2 upper iowa 5-2 earlier in the day.