st. Paul, minn. - senior first baseman brenden furrow (johnston, iowa) went out swinging in his last career home games at barnes field. Last night, he was deemed concordia university's male athlete of the year and today he backed it up on the field. Furrow jacked three home runs in the first game against minnesota state, driving in five more runs in a 16-6 loss in eight innings to the mavericks. The three homers allowed furrow to break two more records: single season and career home runs. He now holds every major hitting record in concordia baseball. In game two, furrow went down swinging, literally, going 0-3 with three strikeouts as concordia fell 17-2. Concordia falls to 22-26 overall (14-13 nsic) while msu surges to 33-11 overall (22-6 nsic) and a first place tie in the conference standings. game 1 box | game 2 box
the mavericks certainly exacted their revenge on concordia for the 10-run rule performance cu delivered to msu last week in mankato in a 17-7 shelling. Minnesota state takes the season series three games to one and snaps cu's streak of three consecutive series won and was the first series concordia lost in a stretch of four opponents.
the golden bears are still not mathematically eliminated from postseason play. Sitting in 8th place in the standings, they trail 5th place minnesota duluth (18-10) by 3.5 games, 6th place wayne state (17-10) by 3.0 games and 7th place augustana (17-11) by 2.5 games. Concordia essentially must win-out in their four game series at third place winona state (21-7) this weekend to even consider moving into the top-6 for an nsic tournament spot. If they can finish strong, they'll need two of the three teams from 5-7 to drop three if not four of their games over the weekend and all have favorable weekend matchups.
game 1: minnesota state 16, cu 6 (8 innings)
furrow continues to hammer northern sun pitching, going 3-4 with five rbi in the first game. All three of his hits were towering home runs giving him 16 on the season and 34 for his career. He breaks teammate blake devries (sr., eden prairie, minn.) record of 15 although devries will still have a shot to take the record back at wsu this weekend. Furrow surpasses matt borman (2003-04, 07) for the career home run mark. Borman had slugged 33 in his three seasons as a golden bear.
there's no doubt that one of the best hitters in concordia history is going out on top. He's enjoying his best season by far, hitting .399 with career highs in hits (75), homers (16) and rbi (64). His hits and rbi could still end up as school records. He's one rbi short of chris herbert's 2009 mark and is trailing teammate bryan lippincott (so., des moines, iowa) by five hits with four games to play.
minnesota state scored in seven out of the eight innings in the game and jumped out to an early 4-0 lead in the first inning thanks to a three-run homer by patrick dockendorf.
furrow answered in the bottom of the inning by hitting his first homer driving in lippincott who led off the frame with a walk.
but every time concordia scored, the mavericks responded and usually added more runs back to their lead than concordia was able to cut into.
in the second, msu added two more and led 6-2. The golden bears scored a run in the second with the bases loaded, but the run came home on a double play which thwarted what could've been a big inning.
in the third, furrow led off with his second homer and concordia was only down by two, 6-4.
but the mavericks scored two in the fourth as they chased junior right hander ryan rodeck (lino lakes, minn.) from the game with just one out. Rodeck allowed eight runs on nine hits in his 3.1 innings and fell to 1-5 taking the loss.
the mavericks scored four more times in the fifth and would score a run in the sixth and eighth innings with two in the seventh off left handed reliever patrick rydeen (fr., stillwater, minn.) who pitched 4.2 innings and was hit for eight runs while striking out three.
the golden bears were blanked in the middle innings and scored two more runs in the bottom of the seventh facing the 10-run rule when furrow cut an 11-run deficit to nine with just one powerful swing, allowing concordia to cling to hopes of a big inning.
furrow's third homer of the game came off msu closer luke putz, arguably the top closer in the northern sun. Eugene sturm got the win, working six innings of four run ball with five strikeouts in his first start of the season. He improved to 2-0.
lippincott went 2-3 for concordia while devries was 3-4 with a double and junior jon stockton (oakdale, minn.) was 2-4. Furrow extended his hitting streak to 13 games before going hitless in the second to snap the streak. Sophomore troy dubay (urbandale, iowa) also extended his hitting streak by going 1-3 before it was snapped in the second game as well.
lippincott hit safely in both games and now holds the longest active hitting streak at nine games and has accumulated 80 hits on the season with a .423 average and is in line to surpass 200 at bats.
the mavericks were led by zach rowles' 4-4 performance out of the leadoff spot with five runs and his 25th stolen base while eighth batter steven helget went 5-5. Msu recorded 22 hits and all nine starters hit safely with seven of them producing multi-hit games.
game 2: minnesota state 17, cu 2
the second game started much like the first with msu scoring four in the first before adding three in the second. With a 7-0 deficit, concordia turned to their bullpen to start the third inning.
freshman right hander hogan jackson (oakdale, minn.) got the start and worked the first two innings, taking the loss to fall to 2-2. Concordia turned to another freshman out of the bullpen when lefty griff kilber (chanhassen, minn.) came on. Kilber was solid allowing three runs in his first three innings before things exploded on him in his fourth inning of work in the seventh inning.
kilber was able to strike out three batters over 3.2 innings and showed excellent control, throwing 61 of 80 pitches for strikes. Another left hander, cody wilcoxson (so., aurora, colo.) bailed kilber out of the seventh by striking out the only batter he faced.
in the seventh inning, concordia brought in sophomore logan bouts (hopkins, minn.) for his first career appearance on the mound. Bouts, usually used as the dh, left fielder or first baseman or clean-up hitter, displayed a powerful presence on the mound. The right hander struck out the first two batters he faced swinging before allowing a pair of two-out hits. He stranded runners on first and second as he showed ability to pitch out of a jam.
devries went 2-3 at the plate with two doubles and scored twice. He doubled three times in the two games as he went 5-7 to raise his average to .341 on the year and has doubled 10 times now. Sophomore ty hall (spring lake park, minn.) went 1-2 with an rbi double, his second double of the season. Hall also made a great diving catch in right field, popped up to throw out the runner on second base for a 9-6 double play.
lippincott's late game replacement, freshman mick sawinski (st. Louis park, minn.) got a base hit in his lone at bat and the coaching staff was able to provide two innings of playing time to a number of key reserves.
msu's danny miller made his second appearance and first start of the year and looked like a seasoned-veteran with 10 strikeouts over five innings for the win.
rowles had another fine performance, going 5-5 with three runs and four rbi while helget also stayed hot with a 3-4 performance. Rowles went 9-9 in the two games while helget was 8-9.
miller helped his own cause on the mound by delivering a 4-5 game at the plate with three runs and three rbi.
the mavericks totalled 26 hits in game two for a two game total of 48.
