TUCSON, Ariz. – The Concordia-St. Paul baseball team (3-4) cruised to an 18-0 seven-inning win over Presentation (3-8) on Monday afternoon in the Tucson Invitational Games at Kino Sports Complex.
 
It was a record-breaking day for the Golden Bears as the team set a DII-era record at Concordia with 18 strikeouts while the offense also put up their largest run and hit totals in nearly a full calendar year.
 
The duo of Blake Stelzer and Christian Morel combined to throw a four-hit shutout as they allowed just six balls in play in 24 at-bats against and tallied at least two strikeouts in every inning. Stelzer (1-1) was nearly untouchable as he struck out a career-best 14 hitters while allowing just one hit in 5.0 innings to pick up the win. The right-hander fell just two strikeouts shy of the individual school record as he tallied three strikeouts in the first, second, fourth and fifth innings of the contest. Morel picked up where Stelzer left off as he collected four strikeouts in 2.0 scoreless innings as he scattered three hits.
 
At the plate, it was all hands on deck as 11 different players combined for 20 hits while six registered at least two hits. The team's 18 runs and 20 hits were the most since a wild 23-15 win over Wayne State nearly a year ago to the day on March 5, 2018 in Tucson. CSP was especially impressive with two strikes as 10 of their 20 hits were two-strike hits.
 
Ryan Christopher remained red hot with four hits in five trips, including a double, while driving in four, scoring three times and stealing a pair of bags. Christopher improved his season average to .417 as he has gone 9-14 with four extra-base hits and nine RBIs.
 
Ryan Bastyr added three hits and a pair of RBIs while Patrick Bordewick and Griffin Lapp had two hits and two RBIs apiece. Justin McGuigan also reached base three times as he finished 2-3 with a walk and three runs scored.
 
Stelzer got off to a blazing start as the first eight outs he registered came via the strikeout. The right-hander did not allow his first ball in play until a leadoff single in the fourth as he overpowered the Saints in the early innings.
 
At the plate, the Golden Bears loaded the bases in the second before breaking through with a pair of runs in the third. Christopher got off to a quick start with a single through the right side to lead off the third before moving into scoring position with a stolen base. One batter later, Pietsch hustled out a run-scoring double as the ball deflected off the glove of a diving shortstop into right center to put CSP in front. With two outs in the inning, Ryan Bastyr added an RBI hit of his own as he lined a single to right to bring home Pietsch and double the lead at 2-0.
 
CSP was right back at it in the next inning as they tacked on four to extend the advantage to 6-0. Christopher brought home the first two runs of the inning with an RBI single before Bordewick singled to right to drive in Christopher and came all the way around to score on a misplay by the right fielder.
 
Then came the big inning as the Golden Bears nearly batted around twice, sent 17 hitters to the plate and scored 11 runs on 12 hits in the fifth to completely break it open. Griffin Lapp, who came off the bench as a pinch hitter, picked up a pair of RBI singles in the frame while Bordewick, Bastyr, Soeffker, Thimsen, McGuigan, Young and Christopher all had run-scoring hits in the inning as well.
 
The Golden Bears tacked on one more run on a Young RBI groundout in the sixth to bring the score to the final margin of 18-0.
 
Prior to the afternoon's action, the Golden Bears picked up a 16-6 win on Monday morning in an exhibition game against the Briar Cliff JV team.
 
In that contest, Eric Lundell provided three solid innings on the mound while Mitch Klass, Mason Wolf, Jack Becker and JT Hoffman aided a big offensive performance with multi-hit games.
 
Concordia will now have a day off before returning to action on Wednesday at 4 p.m. against Northwestern (Iowa).