bemidji, minn. - when the golden bears and beavers took the field for an adjusted 8:00 p.m. Start time, senior right handed pitcher jake schmidt (oakdale, minn.) took command, striking out 14 batters to break the single season strikeout record while earning his 23rd career victory to tie the cu career mark. Schmidt has fanned 103 batters in just 69.0 innings. He broke his previous record of 100 set last year during his junior season. The golden bears edged bemidji state 4-2 in the first of a four game series at bsu baseball field. Game two was postponed in the top of the first inning with schmidt batting with a 1-0 count. The game is scheduled to be resumed at that point tomorrow at 12:00 with senior right hander chris kimpton (canberra, aus.) taking the mound for cu. Kimpton is 4-4 with a 3.24 earned run average on the season. box score
schmidt improved to 7-2 on the season and the 14 strikeouts are the second most in a start in his four year career, second only to the 16 he notched last weekend against umc. In his last three appearances, schmidt has struck out 32 batters in 14.2 innings. He scattered six hits and allowed two runs without issuing a walk in the win.
he ties scott hollingsworth's career record of 23 wins in a career. Schmidt is now 23-8 while hollingsworth was 23-15 pitching from 1995-99. Prior to the 2008 season, no one had recorded more than 78 strikeouts in a season. But schmidt has posted back-to-back 100 strikeout campaigns, this year already getting to 103 in 69.0 innings while last year it took 73.2 innings to reach 100.
the golden bears led 1-0 in the second and extended that lead to 3-0 in the third.
the three run lead was enough as schmidt would only allow a two run bottom of the third to the beavers.
concordia had a hit each from the first five hitters in the lineup with doubles and rbi's from schmidt along with seniors brenden furrow and zane froehlich. Furrow extended his hitting streak to nine games and has now hit safely in 21 of 23 games.
senior chris herbert also recorded an rbi in the game, his 54th this season. Concordia's other hits were picked up by sophomore jon stockton and senior zach strouts, who each scored in the game.
bemidji state scored their two runs on a two run hit by ryan sander. P.j. Mcintee had a two hit performance as well. Both went 2-3 in the game.
brent vollbrecht took the loss, falling to 3-5. He worked five innings allowing three runs.
game two was started with bsu throwing a ball to schmidt to start the game. The game was then suspended at that point and will be resumed tomorrow at noon. With poor weather forecasts for tomorrow in bemidji, the teams are still able to use monday as a make-up date as the teams try to squeeze three more games in this weekend. Nsic by-laws state that the teams have the option to stay no longer than two nights on a road weekend series to get games in. With cu travelling to bsu earlier today, they have until monday to finish the series.
stay logged on to www.cugoldenbears.com for continued updates this weekend.
