st. Paul, minn. - the concordia baseball team made another stride forward in their 2010 season, taking three of four in their season series against bemidji state at barnes field played on sunday and monday afternoon. Today, the golden bears took the first game 12-9 in a scheduled 9-inning contest but fell 4-3 in game two in a scheduled 7-inning game. The game two loss snapped a nine game home winning streak at barnes field and pushes their home record to 10-9 on the year after dropping their first seven in st. Paul. Sophomore shortstop bryan lippincott went 5-8 with two home runs, a double and five rbi in the twin bill and is now hitting .421 in 45 games overall and a torrid .486 in 25 league games. game 1 box | game 2 box
game 1: cu 12, bemidji state 9
the golden bears got off to a slow start once again, allowing the visitors to score first with a four run first inning off redshirt freshman right hander andy fagely (mahtomedi, minn.). But he settled down immediately, blanking the beavers for the next three innings and allowing just one run from the second through sixth innings.
in the bottom of the second inning, concordia struck back with a vengeance, sending 13 batters to the plate in a nine run inning. Lippincott's three run blast to right center came right in the middle of the onslaught and was followed by a j.t. Schneider (fr., oak creek, wis.) triple to right center and rbi doubles from senior brenden furrow (johnston, iowa) and junior sam fagely (mahtomedi, minn.).
all nine of concordia's lineup hit safely in the inning in an impressive showing.
while a.fagely settled into a nice groove on the hill, so did bsu's reliever bryan jamieson, who came in to get the final out of the second inning on one pitch. A.fagely allowed one run over five innings (2nd through 6th) while jamieson allowed a one out third inning double to lippincott who was stranded before holding cu's potent lineup hitless in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings.
how potent is concordia's lineup? after today's doubleheader, concordia is hitting .383 against northern sun pitching and all nine hitters are hitting .341 or better.
in the seventh inning, bsu had a leadoff walk and a single before back-to-back ground outs manufactured a run of a.fagely. Through seven innings, he allowed six runs and appeared poised to work a solid eighth inning against the bottom of the beaver lineup.
in the bottom of the seventh, concordia's bottom of the order set the table for the top, getting runners to second and third with two outs when schneider delivered an rbi single up the middle off the pitcher's mound, beating the throw to first from the second baseman behind second base.
furrow followed by lacing a two-run double to the left center gap to give cu a 12-6 lead.
with a six run lead, a.fagely allowed a pop-up double to left field that senior blake devries (eden prairie, minn.) lost in the sun. A.fagely got the next two batters out before allowing a single, triple and another single as bsu cut the six run lead in half.
with a runner on second and two down, cu turned to "the freak" nick anderson (jr., rhp, plymouth, minn.). Anderson, appearing in his 22nd game of the year, retired four straight batters to close the door on bemidji state for his sixth save.
a.fagely picked up the win, working well into the eighth inning despite allowing nine earned runs on 12 hits. He forced 14 grounders to six fly outs while striking out three. After the shaky first inning, he was outstanding through the middle innings, improving to 5-2 on the season.
bemidji starter nick monson went 1.2 innings allowing seven earned runs (nine total) as cu tagged him for 10 hits in 15 at bats with 16 batters coming to the plate. Jamieson fared much better, working 6.1 innings allowing three runs on six hits. All three runs scored against him in the seventh inning with two outs in a solid relief appearance.
anderson's sixth save is a new concordia single season record, and is his seventh career save which ranks second on the career list but seven behind record holder kirk ingram (2006-09) with 14.
lippincott went 3-4 in the first game with his 17th double and eighth home run while driving in three runs. In the field, he had five assists at short.
concordia also had two-hit performances by schneider, furrow, devries, sam fagely (jr., mahtomedi, minn.) and jon stockton (jr., oakdale, minn.). S.fagely clubbed his 10th double of the year including his fifth double of the weekend. Furrow drove in three runs in the game while drilling a pair of doubles, giving him 14 on the year. One of schneider's two hits was his third triple of the year.
the win propelled concordia to their 10th win in 11 games and their 12th in a 14 game span.
game 2: bemidji state 4, cu 3
bemidji state struck first for the fourth consecutive time in the final game of the series. And for the first time, they delivered on their early score. Bsu scored a run each in the second and third innings to take a 2-0 lead before concordia rallied in the bottom of the third.
bsu starter doug peterson was making his third start of the year and concordia finally got to him with their 8-9 hitters as stockton was hit by a pitch and troy dubay (so., urbandale, iowa) socked a double to left center. Stockton scored on lippincott's rbi single to to the opposite field to left. With runners on first and third, cu did their patented delayed steal of second base as lippincott appeared to toy with the bsu catcher, riley hirsch. Hirsch wasn't having it, throwing a strike to second base to catch him in his tracks. But lippincott evaded the tag, safely swiping the base as dubay raced home for a successful double steal to tie the game at two after three.
the golden bears started anderson just like they did the prior weekend against minnesota crookston. Anderson retired nine straight batters from the third through sixht innings before hitting a batter. He retired the following hitter to pitch out of the sixth inning and was in command.
anderson started the seventh with a strikeout and a ground out and had a 2-2 count on leadoff hitter chad hanson. But hanson sprayed his 2-2 pitch on the outer half of the plate to left field for a two out single. It was the first of four straight singles and a pair of runs came home before anderson struck out nick jelacie looking with runners on second and third to end the inning.
concordia's offense stranded runners on second base in the third, fourth, fifth and sixth innings as peterson was extremely efficient on the day.
in the bottom of the seventh, trailing by two runs, lippincott pounced on a pitch down the middle, driving it over the right centerfield fence for a solo homer into the gangelhoff center parking lot. But schneider was unable to leg out a grounder to short, getting thrown out by a half step on a close play before furrow hit a rocket line drive to center right at jelacie for the game's final out.
peterson needed only 84 pitches for the complete game victory, his first win of the year. He scattered seven hits and allowed three runs in his seven innings. He didn't register a strikeout and walked just one as he pitched to contact.
anderson, meanwhile, was out-dueled, tossing a complete game as he fell to 6-6 on the year. He allowed four earned runs and struck out five with just one walk but allowed 10 hits.
anderson's start was his 23rd appearance, tying ingram's 2009 season record. He has now worked 74.2 innings on the season, just four outs shy of establishing a new single season mark (greg fruetel, 1993, 75.2 ip).
lippincott went 2-4, driving in a pair of runs while stealing his 17th base successfully. He has yet to be caught this season. Lippincott now has 31 extra base hits on the year with a .716 slugging pct. He's slugging .835 in league play with 20 of his extra base hits coming in the 25 league games.
the only other multi-hit performance was from freshman hogan jackson (oakdale, minn.) who went 2-3 with a double but did not produce any runs as no one was on base in any of his three times to the plate.
dubay delivered his 13th double while s.fagely hit his 11th including an impressive six in four games over days.
bemidji state's leadoff and third hitter, hanson and colton smith, each went 3-4 and bsu managed to manufacture their four runs on 10 hits with only two for extra bases (both doubles). Smith had two rbi while hanson scored twice.
lippincott now has 77 hits on the season, eight more than the previous record of 69 set last season by furrow, who has 72 hits this season as well. While lippincott momentarily holds the single season record with six regular season games to play, furrow possesses three of the top four hit seasons in school history.
lippincott's 17 doubles are just two shy of the single season record. Furrow now has 59 rbi on the season, the second highest total in a season and just six off the school record set last year by chris herbert (65).
furrow holds the longest active hitting streak on the team at 12 games, the second longest streak of the season; while dubay has hit safely in 11 straight which is impressive coming from the ninth spot in the order including numerous 7-inning games with fewer plate appearances. S.fagely has now hit safely in nine straight while lippincott owns a seven game hitting streak.
concordia gets a day off on tuesday before hosting minnesota state, mankato on wednesday afternoon at barnes field in their last home games of 2010 at 1:30 p.m. Anyone unable to attend will be able to watch the games online live and free courtesy of minnesota sports broadcast network (msbn) at www.mnsportsnetwork.com.
