st. Paul, minn. - the concordia university baseball team (16-22, 8-9 nsic) has now won six of their last seven games, sweeping today's nsic doubleheader against minnesota crookston (3-34, 0-22 nsic) with 18-8 win in the first game before a 13-2 second game win. Concordia sluggers brenden furrow (johnston, iowa) and blake devries (eden prairie, minn.) each belted two home runs in the first game victory. Devries' seventh inning three-run shot was a walk-off homer as it gave cu a 10-run lead in the 7th inning of a 9 inning game. It was his 14th homer of the year, tying the school record. Sophomore chris peterson (rhp, st. Anthony, minn.) tossed a complete game in game two to complete the sweep at barnes field. game 1 box | game 2 box

the doubleheader sweep sets up concordia with a chance to take their first weekend league series of the season. In the fourth nsic weekend series, cu has improved on each of their first three four game series. After a season opening sweep against augustana to start league play, cu dropped two of three to wayne state before splitting in four games last weekend at st. Cloud state. This weekend, they are in position to capture the series and if they can complete the series sweep, they'll have their league record above .500 for the first time this year. They did take three of four from northern state in a mid-week home/home series the past two weeks.

sophomore shorstop bryan lippincott (des moines, iowa) continued his hot hitting, going 7-8 in the two games with five runs, nine rbi, his 12th steal, his 14th double and fifth triple and is now hitting .423 on the year. Devries was 3-5 with five rbi in the first game, finishing the day 5-9 with five runs. His 14 hr ties matt borman's 2007 single season record. Furrow, meanwhile, also went 5-9 and now has 10 hr on the year and is in sole possession of the career runs scored record and played in his record 169th game in game two. He also surpassed 600 career at bats and has held that record for a few weeks already. Furrow drove in five more runs on the day and socked his ninth double as well.

freshman second baseman j.t. Schneider (oak creek, wis.) kept his hitting streak alive with a 3-7 afternoon at the plate with five rbi. Another player had a hitting streak hit double-digits as well, when junior jon stockton (oakdale, minn.) hit safely in game two to up his streak to 10 games before connecting for his second home run of the season late in the game.

game 1: cu 18, minnesota crookston 8 (7 innings)
in the first game of the series, a scheduled nine inning game, concordia fell behind early, trailing 3-1 after two innings powered by furrow's first home run of the day to the opposite field on a day when the wind was gusting anywhere from 10mph to 25mph straight in from left field on an otherwise beautiful day with clear skies and temperatures in the low to mid-60's throughout the day.

after allowing the three runs in two innings, redshirt freshman right handed starter andy fagely (mahtomedi, minn.) settled into a groove. He allowed seven hits and a walk in the first two innings, but when devries tossed out a runner at the plate in the second, the team rallied around a.fagely.

he ended the inning without allowing any further runs thanks to devries and retired the next six golden eagles he faced before stranding a two-out double to end the fourth inning.

after allowing a one out single in the fifth, he induced a double play to shortstop lippincott, who stepped on second and fired to first to end the inning.

the offense took care of business, too, tying the score in the third with back-to-back doubles by the 8-9 hitters, sophomores ty hall (spring lake park, minn.) and troy dubay (urbandale, iowa) as the top of the order knocked them in, a sac fly by lippincott and an rbi single by schneider.

they exploded for a five run fourth inning with a two run double by lippincott while devries added a two run homer later in the inning.

two more crossed home in the fifth to give concordia a 10-3 lead including nine consecutive runs.

but things hit a wall for fagely in the sixth inning as he allowed a leadoff double to left center before getting his only out of the inning. Three consecutive singles followed, and he walked the last batter he'd face to leave the bases loaded with one out and a 10-5 score for junior right handed reliever nick anderson (plymouth, minn.) in what was technically a save situation with the tying run on deck.

anderson struck out his first batter looking before letting in all three fagely runners. He blew away a umc batter swinging to leave runners on first and second with cu still leading by a pair, 10-8.

in the bottom of the inning, furrow provided a pair of insurance runs with one swing but left a pair of runners on base.

anderson was solid again in the seventh, retiring umc in order with two more strikeouts. He would pitch 1.2 scoreless out of the bullpen with four strikeouts to earn his fourth save.

concordia notched six runs in the bottom of the inning which was capped by devries' three run blast to end the game.

fagely got the win, improving to 4-2 in an outing that looks worse on paper than he actually pitched. He allowed eight runs on 13 hits with three strikeouts but was able to give cu 5+ innings in the first game of the series.

the golden eagles were led by leadoff hitter david lovly's 4-4 performance, also stealing his ninth base and scoring two runs. Josh kraby was 2-4 with a pair of rbi while casey woodside was also 2-4 with two rbi and his third homer of the year.

game 2: cu 13, minnesota crookston 2
concordia did not dig themselves into a hole in the second game, scoring four runs in the second to get on the board first with a two-run single by lippincott and a two-run double by schneider.

it was all they needed for peterson, who was outstanding on the mound for the second straight time at home. Peterson threw a complete game four hitter with three strikeouts to just one walk. He only needed 95 pitches and surrendered only one extra base hit in the game. He improved to 3-1 with the win and lowered his era to 4.64 on the season.

lippincott went 3-4 with his fifth triple of the season, second most in a single season and his seventh career triple, which also ranks second in the record books. Furrow was also 3-4 including his 48th career double and three more rbi, giving him 160. Furrow also has scored 140 career runs to date.

concordia's ninth batter, dubay, went 1-1 but drew a pair of walks and scored three times and has turned his bat around as of late, too.

concordia socked six doubles and eight extra base hits in the second game while holding umc to just one double.

the golden bears also committed only one team error in the two games, a seventh inning throwing miscue and have only committed three errors in the last six games - a big reason for the team turnaround in the w-l columns as cu has won six of seven overall.

with lippincott's three hit performance, he is now four shy of furrow's single season mark of 69 set last season while furrow is not far behind his pace with 58 hits of his own.

the golden bears and golden eagles complete their season series tomorrow at barnes field at noon with a 9/7 doubleheader. Concordia has now won 25 consecutive games against umc with a 28-6 series record dating back to 2000 when concordia joined the northern sun.