st. Paul, minn. - the golden bears continued to play to their home field advantage by hitting five home runs to sweep this afternoon's doubleheader with 8-7 and 6-0 wins at barnes field in the season finale. Today's sweep gives concordia (35-18, 16-15 nsic) the series edge against winona state (28-19, 20-12 nsic). Senior right hander aaron pfalzgraff (garland, texas) pitched a complete game for the win in game one before sophomore righty nick anderson (plymouth, minn.) threw his first career shutout in game two. game 1 box - game 2 box
game 1: cu 8, winona state 7
much like yesterday's first game, winona state came out strong out of the gate, taking a 6-1 lead heading into the bottom of the third inning.
and again like yesterday, cu stormed back thanks to the long ball.
in the bottom of the third, senior adam bertrand (la salle, ill.) parked a two run homer to right field while freshman logan bouts (hopkins, minn.) followed with a solo to left center. The three run outburst courtesy of the back-to-back jacks put concordia within two runs, 6-4 after three.
from there, pfalzgraff settled into a groove allowing just two hits and a walk the rest of the way. He struck out five in the last four innings including the final two batters.
in the fourth, senior zane froehlich (sioux falls, s.d.) came through with a three run homer down the left field line to put concordia ahead 7-6. It was cu's third home run in a two inning span.
the warriors tied the game up in the sixth at seven when ronnie olson drove in a run on a double down the left field line.
in the bottom of the inning, senior chris herbert led off with a double down the left field line, advanced to third on a wild pitch with jared anderson missing the tag. With the next two batters retired and herbert still on first, concordia caught a break. After bertrand walked, bouts grounded to short. The throw skipped under first baseman adam gemuenden's glove and bouts reached, allowing herbert to scamper home for the 8-7 lead.
in the seventh, pfalzgraff sent the warriors down 1-2-3 including back-to-back strikeouts looking by the wsu 5-6 hitters.
pfalzgraff didn't have his best outing of the year, but his pitching down the stretch was clutch. He struck out seven over seven innings while allowing seven runs. The win improves his record to 6-2.
evan buhr started and went four innings allowing seven runs. Kodey simon was hit with the loss in relief, pitching the sixth inning and only allowing the one unearned run to score.
game 2: cu 6, winona state 0
again, much like yesterday, in game two the golden bear started stifled a hot winona state offense. This time it was anderson who performed in the clutch. In his first career shutout, anderson allowed only three warrior hits and struck out six. He improved to 7-2, matching senior jake schmidt (oakdale, minn.) for best w-l record on the team.
concordia got on the board in the third inning with a leadoff home run by herbert, his 12th long ball of the season. They would then rally for three more runs in unconvential fashion.
in the fourth, cu added to their lead when herbert led off with a double and scored when froehlich hit his second round-tripper of the day, an absolute rocket to the soccer field over the left field fence.
that was all anderson needed. Just like pfalzgraff and chris kimpton in the other two wins in this series, anderson retired the warriors in order in the seventh to put the exclamation point on a record setting season.
in the second game, senior brenden furrow (johnston, iowa) tied concordia's career hits record of 178. His 111 at bats in northern sun play also broke the league at bat record for a season (108, andy leer, upper iowa, 2008) in 31 league games. That record will not be official until the rest of the nsic's 2009 stats are final.
herbert's solo home run gives him a 65 rbi season, seven more than erik quarberg's previous record of 58. The homer also propelled him into third on the career home run list with 24 in just two seasons in the navy and gold.
heading into the weekend, the golden bears knew they would need to win at least three games against winona state to have a shot at making the nsic tournament's six team field.
they did just that, but with other action around the league, the golden bears finished in eighth in the final standings, just a half game out of seventh and one game behind sixth place augustana, who took three of four from cu on nsic opening weekend at veteran's field in minnetonka.
concordia's nine seniors helped the team set a new single season wins record with a 35-18 mark. The three of four against wsu also gave cu a winning nsic record of 16-15. They played a remarkable 53 games this season and completed 31 of their 32 scheduled northern sun contests.
although they will not be able to defend their nsic tournament championship, the team will hang their hats for the season as one of the most successful campaigns in cu baseball history.
in their final game of their careers, herbert, furrow, froehlich, bertrand and zach strouts (st. Louis park, minn.) all hit safely and combined to go 10-17 at the plate and had all but one of the squad's hits in the final game of the season.
pitchers schmidt, kimpton and pfalzgraff all recorded wins in their last career starts while career reliever kirk ingram (woodbury, minn.) fittingly made his last career appearance as the starting pitcher on thursday. It was his first career start in 71 appearances on the mound in four seasons.
