WINONA, Minn. – The Concordia-St. Paul baseball team (20-25, 11-21 NSIC) saw their postseason hopes come to a close on Wednesday afternoon as they dropped two to Winona State (23-19, 15-14 NSIC) on the day. WSU took game one 4-0 and game two 9-1.
With the Golden Bears needing to win at least four of their final five games of the regular season to give themselves a chance to reach the NSIC Tournament, CSP saw their impressive streak of six consecutive trips to the NSIC Tournament snapped by the Warriors. Concordia had finished seventh or above in the challenging Northern Sun every season since 2013 heading into this year.
GAME ONE: Winona State 4, Concordia-St. Paul 0
Scoring proved to be hard to come by in the first game of the day as both teams were held scoreless over the first four and a half innings. The Warriors finally broke the deadlock with a pair of runs in the fourth and two more in the sixth to cruise to a 4-0 victory.
WSU starter Aaron Mutter (5-2) held the Golden Bears to two hits and a pair of walks while striking out 10 in the complete game shutout.
Patrick Bordewick reached twice with a single in the first and a walk in the fourth while
Ben Suits added a double and
Roch Whittaker added a walk.
Louie Varland (4-5) added a complete game on the other side as he worked 6.0 innings, allowing seven hits and four runs while walking one and striking out seven in the loss.
Chad Herbst broke the tie with an RBI single in the bottom half of the fourth inning before Andrew Pliner chipped in a run-scoring hit of his own to make it 2-0.
Pliner was back at it again in the sixth with another RBI single before Austin Savary rounded out the scoring with a sacrifice fly to bring it to the final score of 4-0.
GAME TWO: Winona State 9, Concordia-St. Paul 1
The Warriors picked up where they left off in the first game as they scored one in the second, two in the third and four in the fourth to take control early and claim the doubleheader sweep.
Dylan Whittaker (5-3), brother of Golden Bear first baseman
Roch Whittaker, delivered a complete game victory for the Warriors as he held CSP to one unearned run on three hits over 9.0 innings. Whittaker walked two and grabbed six strikeouts in the win.
Zach Lauzon (2-4) took the loss for the Golden Bears as he worked the first 3.1 innings, allowing seven runs and striking out three.
Luke DeGrammont followed with five strikeouts in 3.0 innings of two-run ball before
Ray Wellner struck out three in 1.2 hitless innings.
Patrick Bordewick led the offense again in game two as he doubled and walked while
Ryan Bastyr and
Steven Nessler added singles.
Ben Suits drove in the team's lone run while CSP pitcher
Nate Stolte reached base via the walk in his first career plate appearance.
After a scoreless first, Derek Baumgartner put the Warriors on top with a two-out RBI single in the bottom of the second and the WSU added two more runs one inning later on two sacrifice flies.
The Warriors started to put it out of reach in the fourth as Zac Stange, Chad Herbst and Andrew Pliner all delivered run-scoring hits in the inning to push the lead to 7-0 through four.
Concordia struck next with their only run of the day as they manufactured one in the sixth.
Carter Schmidt reached base on a two-base error before moving up on a deep fly ball and scoring on a Suits groundout.
WSU wrapped up the scoring an inning later in the seventh as Nathan Loomis doubled home a run before coming around to score on a groundout later in the inning.
The Golden Bears will close out the regular season this weekend against Sioux Falls with a doubleheader on Friday and a single game on Saturday.
