ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Concordia-St. Paul baseball team's (12-9, 4-6 NSIC) weekend series with Minnesota Duluth (4-12, 2-6 NSIC) has moved back to Sunday and Monday and relocated to Superior High School. First pitch is scheduled for 1 p.m. on Sunday and 10 a.m. on Monday.
SCHEDULE INFORMATION
With UMD's home field unplayable due to the winter thaw, the two teams will make the short trip across the border to Superior, Wis. to play a four-game series. On Superior High School's turf field, the two teams will play a pair of NSIC contests on Sunday with the seven-inning first game starting at 1 p.m. and the nine-inning game second to follow shortly after the completion of the first. The two teams will then conclude the conference portion of the series with a nine-inning game at 10 a.m. on Monday before finishing things off with a seven-inning non-conference contest after that.
LAST TIME OUT
On Wednesday, CSP bounced back from a 6-4 game one loss to pick up a 9-1 win in game two against Bemidji State.
The Golden Bears came within an out of a doubleheader sweep as a two-out rally in the seventh inning of the first game of the day for the Beavers kept CSP from taking both.
The duo of
Ryan Christopher and
Patrick Bordewick each picked up multi-hit games in both contests as Christopher finished 4-8 with a pair of runs scored and RBIs while Bordewick extended his hitting streak to 11 by going 4-9 with two driven in as well. Christopher was also impressive on the mound with 6.0 innings of one-run ball to pick up his second win of the season.
UMD SERIES HISTORY
The Golden Bears and the Bulldogs have put together a fairly even series history with CSP holding a record of 20-28 against UMD heading into the weekend. Concordia's best stretch came from 2006-09 as they claimed 11 wins in 13 meetings during that span. Recently, Minnesota Duluth has controlled the series with wins in nine of 11. In 13 neutral site meetings, Concordia has gone 7-6.
LAST MEETING WITH THE BULLDOGS
In the 2017 NSIC Tournament, seventh-seeded CSP dropped a nail-biter by a score of 3-2 to sixth-seeded Minnesota Duluth in a consolation game.
After grabbing the first run of the game in the fourth, CSP rallied to tie it in the sixth before UMD collected the eventual game-winning run in the eighth.
While offense was hard to come by in a game that featured just six hits apiece, first baseman
Ben Suits was in the middle of much of CSP's success at the plate. The sophomore opened the scoring with a fly ball RBI double in the fourth before later tying the game with a sacrifice fly in the sixth. Suits also got Concordia's ninth-inning rally started with an infield single as he finished with two of the team's six hits.
Fellow sophomores
Isaac Hormann and
Carter Schmidt also reached twice for the Golden Bears as well as both singled, walked, and scored a run in the game.
On the mound,
Gus Varland shut down the Bulldogs for much of the afternoon as finished with seven strikeouts and just five hits and no earned runs allowed in 5.1 innings in the no-decision.
Shane Benson picked up right where Varland left off as he allowed just an unearned run on one hit with one walk and two strikeouts in 2.2 innings in a tough-luck loss.
After Ryan Cunningham worked 5.1 solid innings in the start for the Bulldogs, the bullpen completely shut the door with 3.2 shutout innings, allowing just one hit in the process. Colton Sinning (3-3) picked up the relief win with 2.2 hitless innings while Colin Baumgard struck out two of the final three hitters of the game to pick up the save.
