TUCSON, Ariz. – The Concordia-St. Paul baseball team (8-3) finished off their spring trip on a high note with a 4-1 win over St. Cloud State (12-2) in their final game of the Tucson Invitational Games on Sunday morning.
 
Facing a potent Huskies offense that entered the day with a team batting average of .352, senior Josh Gaworski (1-0) silenced the bats with 8.0 stellar innings to pick up the victory. The right-hander had SCSU guessing throughout the contest as he allowed just one run on six hits while walking two and striking out four. Gaworski has now allowed just two runs on eight hits on the season to post a 1.38 ERA through his first 13.0 innings.
 
Ross Bastyr put the cherry on top of the solid pitching performance as he faced the minimum in the ninth after coaxing a game-ending double play to grab his second save of the season.
 
On the other side, Cal Giese (0-1) struggled through 2.1 innings in the start as he was tagged for four runs (three earned) on six hits with a pair of walks in the loss. Blake Flint followed with an impressive relief performance as he allowed a single to the first batter he faced before retiring 17 in a row to finish the game.
 
The Golden Bears spread out the offense with seven different players registering a hit while Ryan Christopher picked up the lone extra-base hit with an RBI double while Ryan Bastyr drove in two with a pinch-hit single and Drew Sannes added an RBI single as well.
 
After putting the first two batters on base in each of the first two innings, the Golden Bears finally broke through against Giese in the third as they hammered out four runs in the inning. With one down, a Patrick Bordewick single and a Roch Whittaker walk set up Ryan Christopher as the sophomore laced a double to the left center gap to bring in the first run of the game. Ryan Bastyr followed with a pinch-hit two-run single as he continued to be a force off the bench, picking up his third RBI hit in six tries off the bench. Drew Sannes added to the lead with an RBI single of his own to drive in Bastyr to make it 4-0 moving into the fourth.
 
Gaworski chewed up the Huskies for the first five innings, needing just 57 pitches to collect 15 outs, before running into trouble for the first time in the sixth. A leadoff walk to Najee Gaskins followed by a wild pitch gave the Huskies a runner in scoring position with nobody. After a Meyer fly out, Mitch Mallek lined a single up the middle to put SCSU on the board. Gaworski settled back in after another walk as he picked up a pair of huge fly outs to keep the Golden Bears in front 4-1.
 
Gaworski continued to stymie St. Cloud State's hitters from there as he retired the side in order in the seventh before working around a pair of hits in the eighth to put up yet another zero to finish off his day. Bastyr then finished the job with a scoreless ninth as he worked around a single by picking up a big double play to finish off the game.
 
CSP opens up conference play next weekend with a three-game series against Southwest Minnesota State.