WINTER HAVEN, Fla. – The Concordia-St. Paul baseball team (3-4) used a big sixth inning to pull ahead before holding off Malone (7-4) for an 8-7 win on Monday morning. In the nightcap, the game between CSP and Minnesota State was rained out after being halted due to rain in the first inning.
 
GAME ONE: Concordia-St. Paul 8, Malone 7
In the first game of the day, the Golden Bears turned an early 2-0 deficit into a 6-2 lead with a big sixth inning. With the lead still at four at 8-4 in the ninth, CSP withstood a late rally from the Pioneers as they stranded the bases loaded to preserve the one-run victory.
 
Nick Thimsen was a major catalyst for the Concordia offense as he reached base all five times in the contest, going 4-4 with a double, a walk, an RBI and two runs scored to bump his season average to .464 through seven games. Chandler Ibach finished 1-3 with a pair of walks to go along with two runs scored and a run batted in while Shea Pekarek also went 1-3 with a walk, scoring once and driving in another.
 
On the mound, freshman Korey Dahlberg (1-0) tallied his first career victory as he allowed just two runs on three hits with two walks and four strikeouts in his 5.1 innings of work in the start. Dahlberg rebounded nicely after allowing two in the second as he blanked the Pioneers over the next 3.1 frames.
 
Alec Holcomb recorded the final two outs of the contest, stranding two in scoring position with the tying run on third and the winning run on second with a game-ending strikeout for his second save of the year.
 
Trailing 2-0 heading to the top of the fifth, Concordia completely flipped the script as Thimsen opened the scoring for CSP with an RBI single before Ibach put the Golden Bears in front with a bases loaded infield single that allowed the go-ahead run to score on an errant throw. Concordia took advantage of another errant throw one batter later to tack on two more runs before Jack Young laced a run scoring single to center to extend it to 6-2.
 
Pekarek added an insurance run with a two-out single in front of the left field fielder in the seventh before Malone got two back in the bottom of the frame. Jarod Wandersee delivered what proved to be the decisive run in the eighth with another two-out run-scoring hit to double up the Pioneers 8-4. Malone utilized two walks, two hit by pitches and a wild pitch sandwiched around a run-scoring double to trim the margin to trim the deficit to one in the last half of the ninth before Holcomb left the winning run on base with his second strikeout of the frame.
 
GAME TWO: Concordia-St. Paul vs Minnesota State
In the second game of the day, CSP and MSU had a 24 minute rain delay in the bottom of the first inning before being halted again later in the frame. After another two hour delay, the game was called.
 
Concordia has the day off tomorrow before returning to action at Rollins at 12 p.m. on Wednesday.