ST. CLOUD, Minn. – Concordia-St. Paul (29-14) dropped its first game in the NSIC Tournament to tournament host and third seed #15 St. Cloud State (41-8) 13-2 on Saturday afternoon at Joe Faber Field. The loss snaps Concorida's six game winning streak while SCSU has won four in a row.
 
The Golden Bears will continue play in the double elimination tournament, facing the second seed Augustana (37-16) and top seed #29 Minnesota Duluth (38-13) winner. Augie and UMD will play in an elimination game this afternoon at Faber Field prior to tonight's 7 p.m. game against Concordia. The Huskies will play tonight's winner tomorrow at noon in the NSIC Championship, with the potential for a doubleheader if SCSU loses.
 
For the second game in a row, Concordia faced one of the top-ranked hitting teams in the country in a starting pitching rematch of the April 13 game. In that contest, junior left handed pitcher Josh Lenz topped SCSU sophomore All-American southpaw Sheldon Miks 7-5 as SCSU dropped its second game of the year (25-2) while Concordia improved to 16-3. SCSU would take the second game of the doubleheader for the split.
 
Today, Concordia served as home team on the diamond on SCSU's home field. Lenz was strong in the early going, striking out the first hitter of the game on his way to a pair of 1-2-3 innings.
 
Concordia reached base first in the game, too when freshman Ben Suits led off the second with a strong single and moved up on a sacrifice bunt by Ryan Poppitz.
 
But the Miks worked out of the jam, retiring the next two hitters.
 
In the third, SCSU rallied with six consecutive singles with the seventh hit going for a double to put six runs across. The only extra base hit of the inning was a wind-aided pop up to right field as the day featured wind gusts well into the 20 mile per hour range along with a high sun.
 
Lenz took the loss, falling to 7-2 on the season with junior right handed reliever Jake Kounkel entering for the fourth inning. Kounkel worked a pair of innings, striking out three before giving way to junior lefty Erik Monson who pitched the last four games with a pair of strikeouts.
 
SCSU tacked on four runs in the fifth and a pair in the sixth as Miks left the game with a 12-0 lead.
 
Miks would cruise through 7.0 shutout innings, allowing six hits with nine strikeouts and no walks to improve to 8-2.
 
In the eighth inning, freshman Kyle Horstmann led off with a triple to center field and scored on an RBI single by freshman Roch Whittaker as Concordia's bench put together the team's first run of the day.
 
In the ninth, senior Yuji Suzuki delivered a pinch hit double deep to the right center field gap, scoring senior Austin Hebig who reached base with a one out walk. It was Suzuki's first career hit, last getting an at bat as a freshman.
 
Concordia had nine hits on the day including doubles by senior Ryan Poppitz (9), freshman Steven Nessler (1) and Suzuki (1) while Horstmann's triple was also his first.
 
Ninth hitter Judd Davis led SCSU by going 4-4 with a pair of RBI while fifth hitter Karl Sorensen went 3-4 with his 14th double and three RBI.