winona, minn. - the concordia baseball team knew they would need a lot of thing to happen to keep their nsic tournament hopes alive and after the first games of today's doubleheaders around the league the picture became clear: the nsic tournament bracket would not include the golden bears. Concordia led in the first game 6-2 but the #30 winona state warriors rallied for eight runs in a row to close out the first game by a 10-6 final at loughrey field. The warriors started strong in game two and held off cu's late surge in a 6-4 final. Senior blake devries (eden prairie, minn.) re-tied the cu single season home run record with his 16th in the first game and is now tied with teammate brenden furrow (sr., johnston, iowa) who was 5-8 with a pair of doubles and three rbi. The three rbi for furrow give him 67 for the season, breaking the chris herbert's record of 65 set last year. game 1 box | game 2 box
game 1: #30 winona state 10, cu 6
the first game loss extends concordia's losing streak to four games and combined with wins by wayne state and minnesota duluth officially eliminated them from nsic tournament action.
things started great for concordia on the road. They finally solved their first two inning pitching woes and were in a scoreless tie before a five run inning broke things open in the top of third. In the inning, furrow had an rbi double to right and scored when devries lifted his two run shot to the opposite field. Freshman hogan jackson (oakdale, minn.) followed with a solo to centerfield giving cu back-to-back homers. It was jackson's fourth home run of his rookie campaign.
junior sam fagely (mahtomedi, minn.) continued his late season doubles surge with his 12th to right center and scored on junior jon stockton's (oakdale, minn.) rbi single to right.
furrow's two doubles in his first two at bats give him 16 on the season and he is now hitting .406 on the year with 78 hits.
the warriors added two runs in the bottom of the third with back-to-back doubles by their 8-9 hitters.
concordia got another run in the fourth with a leadoff double by sophomore troy dubay (urbandale, iowa), his 14th of the year. He advanced to third on a wild pitch and scored on sophomore bryan lippincott's (des moines, iowa) rbi groundout. Lippincott was held hitless and leads furrow by two hits for the school record.
but the warriors just kept producing every inning. Trailing 6-2 heading into the bottom of the fourth, they scored one in the fourth and three in the fifth to chase cu starter ben lemke (so., rhp, rosemount, minn.) from the game with two outs in the fifth.
lemke did not factor into the decision, allowing six runs in 4.2 innings with four strikeouts.
concordia roughed up wsu starter ross hellenbrand just as much, though, scoring six times in 4.0 innings off the wsu starter. They had 10 hits in 21 at bats against him as well.
after five innings, the score tied at six, it would be up to each team's bullpen into the later innings.
concordia turned to single season appearance record holder nick anderson (jr., rhp, plymouth, minn.) for his 25th outing. Anderson finished the game, pitching 3.1 innings allowing four runs on seven hits. He struck out three and walked one but took the loss falling to 6-7.
ty copeland picked up the win improving to 2-0 with three scoreless innings in long relief while kodey simon pitched two perfect innings with two strikeouts to finish the game in a non-save situation.
winona state was led offensively by joe kley (3-5, 2b) and nate van roekel (3-4, 3 2b, 3 rbi) while john magee hit his 13th home run of the season, a three run shot.
lippincott and wsu leadoff hitter tony mueller came into the weekend fighting for the nsic batting title. Lippincott went 0-4 while mueller was 1-5. Lippincott is now hitting .471 in league play while mueller is down to .463. Smsu's cody curry came into the weekend hitting .478 and went 1-4, dropping him to .468 in a solid three player race.
game 2: #30 winona state 6, cu 4
countering the golden bears strong start in the first game, winona state jumped out to the early lead in game two, leading 6-0 after three innings.
concordia snapped winona state's 14-run streak in the fourth inning with an rbi double by stockton and an rbi single by lippincott.
in the sixth inning trailing by four, concordia loaded the bases with no outs for the top of the order. Winona state promptly made a pitching change, removing starter evan buhr from the game.
the move to the bullpen proved wise, as wsu reliever derek wojcik struck out lippincott and freshman j.t. Schneider (oak creek, wis.) to bring up furrow.
having already tied the season rbi record in the first game with 65, furrow delivered a two run single through the middle to give concordia the go-ahead run at the plate with two down.
but the wsu bullpen continued to shut the door on concordia as wojcik forced a grounder to second by devries to end the concordia threat.
in the seventh inning, the warriors turned to their staff ace, tony mueller. Mueller had started and was roughed up on wednesday in a loss to southwest minnesota state, but not before he cruised through five innings in the start. Today, he was just asked to get three outs. He didn't allow a ball in play, striking out the side and stranding a one out walk for his second save.
on the hill for concordia, sophomore right hander chris peterson (st. Anthony, minn.) was roughed up early, giving up two homers in the first inning and another two-run homer in the third inning to fall into the six run hole.
but he settled down from there, shutting out a balanced and potent wsu offense for the final three innings, allowing just one hit the rest of the game.
he finished with a complete game loss, taking just his second loss of the season. He allowed six earned runs striking out four without issuing any walks. He allowed nine hits but none to warrior leadoff hitter mueller who went 1-9 in the two games in his quest to overcome lippincott for the batting title.
mueller's average drops to .446 (50-112) while lippincott is hitting .472 (58-123) after his 2-4 game two performance. Smsu's cody curry went 3-7 in two games and is now hitting .474 (46-97).
furrow also went 2-4 in the second game, giving him 80 hits on the season, two behind lippincott's 82. Dubay continued his strong finish to the 2010 season as well, going 3-4 to raise his average to .312.
lippincott is now one double shy of erik quarberg's season record of 19 as well.
while the golden bears are eliminated from nsic tournament contention today, they still play a vital role in the outcome of the northern sun standings. The warriors are in a three-way tie for the nsic regular season championship with minnesota state and #29 st. Cloud state. The golden bears can block the warriors attempt at a league title tomorrow while the mavericks and huskies play head-to-head in mankato.
