MAUSTON, Wis. - Concordia-St. Paul baseball (5-9, 1-0 NSIC) kicked off NSIC conference play with a 6-4 victory over the Bemidji State Beavers (1-15, 0-1 NSIC) at the Woodside Sports Complex on Sunday afternoon.
The Golden Bears have now won three straight conference openers and extended their win streak over the Beaver to eight games. CSP has a chance tomorrow to tie and break the longest winning streak over BSU in the series history, which is currently nine games from April 2015 to March 2018.
As a team, the Golden Bears collected seven hits in the contest which was highlighted by a two run shot and double from Junior
Nick Thimsen, along with a solo homer from sophomore
Koby McBroome.
Korey Dahlberg (2-2) added another strong performance on the bump for the Golden Bears. The sophomore set career highs in both innings pitched with 7.0 and strikeouts with nine.
Matt Sherman picked up his second career save on his birthday after stranding the final three batters to close out the game.
Concordia controlled the early innings and led by as many as four runs by holding Bemidji State scoreless for five innings. However, the Beavers would not go away quietly as they posted two runs and left five runners on base in the final two innings of play, but it was not enough as the Golden Bears would hang on for the two run win.
After giving up the first run of the game in the top of the second innings, CSP used three runs scored by
Kal Brohmer,
Jaden Werner and
Noah Juliar in the bottom of the inning to take an early 3-1 lead.
The Golden Bears doubled their score with three runs in the fifth inning which was highlighted by McBroome's first home run of the season, and a two-run shot to deep left center field from Thimsen, his second homer of the 2023 campaign.
Bemidji State added a run in the eight and another in the ninth to cut the Golden Bears' lead to two runs, but it was enough as CSP went on to secure the 6-4 victory.
The Golden Bears and the Beavers will run it back tomorrow at the Woodside Sports Complex with a doubleheader series finale in Mauston, Wis. First pitch of game one of the doubleheader is slated for 1 p.m. with game two following shortly afterwards.
