BEMIDJI, Minn. – The Concordia Golden Bears baseball team (12-10, 6-4 NSIC) cruised to a mid-week doubleheader sweep of Bemidji State (7-15, 4-6 NSIC) on Thursday afternoon. The Golden Bears took game one 6-3 before grabbing a 13-2 win in in eight innings in game two.
 
CSP moved back above .500 in conference play as they held an edge in nearly every statistical category. The Golden Bears slashed .348/.436/.500 as a team compared to .154/.258/.173 for the Beavers. On the mound, Concordia held an edge of 3.00 to 9.00 in ERA and 17 to 5 in strikeouts as well. CSP also committed just one error while the Beavers had five.
 
Concordia received production from several places in the lineup, but Isaac Hormann, Roch Whittaker and Tanner Holmquist led the way with at least four hits apiece.
 
Hormann slashed an impressive .714/.778/1.286 as he was retired just twice in nine trips to the plate. He also drove in four and scored three, including falling a triple shy of the cycle in game two.
 
Whittaker picked up four hits in six trips (.667 average) to go along with a pair of walks as he picked up two hits and drove in two runs in each game.
 
Holmquist registered five hits in nine at-bats, including his first homer of the year, while scoring three and driving in two to go along with a steal.
 
GAME ONE: Concordia-St. Paul 6, Bemidji State 3
The Golden Bears jumped on the Beavers with a pair of runs in each of the first two innings before holding off a late push in game one.
 
The top third of the CSP lineup did a lot of the heavy lifting offensively as they went 6-11 (.545) with a homer, a double, a walk and two RBI in the game. Tanner Holmquist led the group with a 3-4 effort as he delivered his first homer of the year while Connor Olson went 2-4 with a double and a pair of runs scored.
 
Roch Whittaker joined in the act by reaching base safely in all four trips, going 2-2 with two walks and a two-run single to open the scoring.
 
On the mound, Blake Stelzer (1-1) held BSU was perfect through the first four innings, including five straight strikeouts to start the game, to grab his first win in navy and gold. Stelzer threw 5.0 innings and allowed two runs and four hits while striking out seven overall. Jake Kounkel came on in the sixth to record the final six outs, with four strikeouts, to grab his second save of the year.
 
Jack Wittwer (0-2) took the loss for the Bemidji State as he worked 2.0 innings, allowing four runs on four hits.
 
CSP collected baserunners however they could in the first as Isaac Hormann walked, Holmquist singled and Carter Schmidt was hit by pitch to load the bases with one out. After a strikeout, Whittaker stepped up and delivered a big two-out hit to left to bring in a pair and give the Golden Bears a 2-0 lead before the Beavers even stepped up to the plate.
 
It was more of the same in the second as Adam Hildebrandt drew a one-out walk before a double from Olson and a singled from Hormann brought in another run. The Golden Bears then took advantage of a double steal situation as Hormann took second and the second baseman committed an error to allow Olson to score to extend it to 4-0.
 
Concordia added another to their lead in the top of the fifth as singles from Olson and Holmquist set up a Carter Schmidt RBI single to bring home one more.
 
Bemidji State finally broke through in their half of the fifth against Stelzer as Gunner Olszewski broke up the perfect game with a single to lead off the inning before coming home on a single from Logan Riedel. Matt Mastantuono later added an RBI single of his own to cut it to 5-2 heading to the sixth.
 
Josh Lenz came on in the sixth for CSP but walked all three men he faced before giving way to Jake Kounkel. Kounkel responded by sandwiching a pair of strikeouts around a sacrifice fly to limit the damage to just one run in the inning.
 
The Golden Bears got that run back in the top of the seventh as Holmquist led off the inning with a blast to left center to bring it to the final score of 6-3 before Kounkel worked a perfect 1-2-3 bottom of the inning to close it out.
 
GAME TWO: Concordia-St. Paul 13, Bemidji State 2 (8 innings)
The Beavers briefly took a 1-0 lead in the first but it was all Concordia from there as CSP rolled past BSU to claim the doubleheader sweep.
 
Isaac Hormann put together a massive game as he fell a triple short of the cycle. The sophomore finished 4-4 with a home run, a double, a walk, four RBI and a pair of runs scored in the game.
 
Mickey Leius wasn't far behind as he went 3-4 with a double and a sacrifice fly while Roch Whittaked went 2-4 with a pair of runs batted in.
 
Riley Sweeney (2-0) picked up his second win in as many starts as he limited the BSU offense to three hits in his 5.2 innings pitched. Sweeney allowed two runs while walking five and striking out four. Ray Wellner came on to retire seven of the eight batters he faces to lower his season ERA to 2.16.
 
Alec Meyer (0-2) lasted just four innings in the loss for BSU, allowing six runs on eight hits while striking out one. The Golden Bears continued to have success against the bullpen as they scored at least one run against each of the four relievers.
 
The first two hitters reached for BSU against Sweeney, but the right-hander limited the damage to just one run on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Gunner Olszewski.
 
The lead lasted just a half an inning as the Golden Bears responded with four runs in the top of the second. After a strikeout to start the inning, six of the next seven hitters collected hits. Roch Whittaker started things off with a single before a double from Mickey Leius put two in scoring position. Patrick Bordewick and Steven Nessler followed with run scoring singles to put CSP in front. A fly out resulted in the second out before Isaac Hormann doubled in a run and Tanner Holmquist singled in another.
 
Hormann added two more to the lead in the fourth with his first home run of the year, a two-run shot, to give him his third hit and second extra base hit of the game.
 
A Mickey Leius sacrifice fly in the fifth along with a run on a wild pitch and another run-scoring hit from Hormann, this time a single, in the sixth ballooned the lead all the way out to 9-1.
 
The Beavers got one back in the bottom of the sixth, but CSP erased it with one of their own in the seventh and three more in the eighth to invoke the run rule. The Golden Bears benefitted from errors in each inning as well as a two-run single from Roch Whittaker in the eighth to bring it to the final score of 13-2 in eight.
 
Concordia will have a quick turnaround as they travel to Minnesota Crookston over the weekend for a four-game series starting on Saturday.