ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Concordia-St. Paul baseball team (1-1) is set to head south this week to take part in the Tucson Invitational. The Golden Bears are scheduled to play six contests against five different opponents starting Thursday night and wrapping up on Sunday.
Concordia got their season off to a strong start with a 3-1 victory over #17 St. Cloud State on Monday before falling to the Huskies 7-2 in game two.
Concordia took advantage of a solid pitching combination with
Gus Varland and
Josh Lenz holding the Huskies to just one run on four hits in game one while
Zach Elder hit a go-ahead two-run homer to give the Golden Bears the decisive 3-1 lead.
On the day,
Carter Schmidt paced team with three hits in six at-bats while
Isaac Hormann doubled twice and drove in a run.
Ben Suits also had a pair of hits as well.
After facing the #17 team in the country in St. Cloud State in the season-opening doubleheader, CSP will meet another nationally ranked opponent in the first game in Arizona on Thursday with a 7 p.m. start time against #10 Azusa Pacific (10-1). The Cougars have jumped out of the gates quickly with 10 wins in their first 11 games to move into the top-10 in the country. The two teams will be meeting for the first time ever.
Friday will be another single contest day as the Golden Bears will take on Grand View (4-2), an NAIA school, at 3:30 p.m. The Vikings opened their season a week and a half ago in the Joplin Invitational as they went 4-2. In the all-time series between CSP and GVU, Concordia has gone 1-2. The last meeting came in 2009 with the teams splitting a doubleheader at the Metrodome.
The Golden Bears follow that with a split doubleheader on Saturday as they take on NSIC foe Northern State (0-0) in a non-conference contest at 10 a.m. and Malone (1-1) at 1:30 p.m. Concordia has dominated the all-time series with a 45-10 record against the Wolves and has won all four meetings against the Pioneers. CSP met Malone for a doubleheader last season and took both contests.
Concordia concludes play on the trip with a doubleheader against another NSIC opponent as they take on Southwest Minnesota State (0-0) in non-conference play starting at 11 a.m. on Sunday. The all-time series has been fairly even with the Golden Bears holding a 25-19 edge, including a 4-0 season sweep last season.
Live stats will be available for all games during the trip at cspbears.com/livebase.
