SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – The fifth-seeded Concordia-St. Paul baseball team (26-15) earned their second trip to the NSIC Championship in the past three years with a 4-2 win over top-seeded Minot State (34-16) on Friday night.
The Golden Bears bounced back in a big way on Friday night to punch their ticket to the title game. CSP bumped their all-time record to 14-18 in NSIC Tournament play as they pursue their first conference title since 2008. As the team emerging from the loser's bracket, Concordia will have to defeat the second-seeded #11 Augustana Vikings twice to earn the crown.
It was the CSP pitching staff that stole the show as
Keanu Mendez and
Louie Varland combined to strike out 17 hitters on the night.
Mendez (3-1) picked up the win as he put together 5.0 solid innings in the start. He scattered six hits and a pair of walks while striking out eight as he left with a 4-2 lead.
Varland was even better as he retired all 12 hitters he faced after a leadoff single to go along with nine strikeouts. The nine strikeouts were second-most in his career despite working only 4.0 innings to tally his first save of the season.
In a game in which Concordia was held off the board in eight of their nine trips to the plate, they picked up hits when it counted most.
Connor Olson picked up a big RBI hit as a part of a three-hit performance while
Isaac Hormann drove in two to tie the game before
Carter Schmidt drove in the eventual winning run in the four-run fifth.
Adam Hildebrandt and
Patrick Bordewick each chipped in two hits in the win.
Aaron Bernal (1-2) stifled CSP over his first four innings of work, but was tagged for four runs in the fifth to take the loss. The left-hander gave up seven hits and struck out one in 4.2 innings of work.
The Beavers put a runner in scoring position in the first while the Golden Bears had one in scoring position in the third, but the score remained scoreless until the bottom half of the third. Following two outs on two pitches to start the inning, Wyatt Schlosser golfed an 0-1 pitch over the right field wall to put Minot State ahead 1-0 heading to the fourth.
Minot State tacked on another run in the bottom of the fourth as they quickly put runners on second and third with nobody out with a single and a double. Dustin Wilcox followed with an infield single to bring home Justin Demary. With runners on second and third for the second time in the inning and still nobody out, Mendez picked up a line drive double play and a strikeout to bring the inning to a close with the score at 2-0.
After limiting the damage in the previous half inning, the Golden Bears broke out with four in the fifth.
Adam Hildebrandt got things started with a single before
Patrick Bordewick laced a double off the wall in left to put two in scoring position with one down. Hormann promptly brought both of them in with a single up the middle to tie the game at 2-2. After a grounder moved him up to second, Schmidt lined a single to left to score Hormann and give CSP the lead. After a
Drew Sannes walk, Olson added another RBI single to double the lead to two at 4-2.
Concordia's pitching staff took over from there as they shut down the Beavers lineup for the next five innings. Mendez came back out for the fifth and finished strong as he picked up a groundout followed by a pair of strikeouts to complete the clean inning.
Varland came on and allowed a leadoff single in the bottom of the sixth before quickly settling in. After a fly out, the right-hander struck out the next two to end the inning. Those two strikeouts started an incredible stretch in which he struck out seven consecutive hitters until a fly out to left to end the eighth broke the streak. He followed with a groundout to start the ninth before picking up two more to bring the total to 17 for the team to end the game.
