ST. PAUL, Minn. - Concordia-St. Paul closed out its home slate on a perfect sunny spring afternoon at Barnes Field, falling twice in a doubleheader 8-2 and 27-22 against Minnesota Duluth.

Concordia, now 20-27 overall and 16-21 NSIC, will head to Sioux Falls (27-25, 23-14 NSIC) for a three-game series to close out the regular season. The two wins for UMD are big for the conference standings, vaulting the Bulldogs to 19-18 (23-24 overall) in a three-time tie for sixth. 

UMD is at UMary (19-18) while Minnesota Crookston (19-18) hosts Northern State (9-28). Two teams sit between CSP and that three-time sixth-place tie: Southwest Minnesota State and Winona State, tied at 18-19. SMSU is at #4 Minnesota State (33-4) and Winona State is at Wayne State (22-15).

Concordia scratched out 30 hits in the doubleheader, hitting .370/.458/.556 as a team with seven extra-base hits including four home runs. Trett Joles and Eric Berg each went 5-10 with a double, homer and four RBIs with Joles scoring four times and Berg twice. Koby McBroome and Kaden Johnson each went 4-9, with McBroome delivering CSP's lone game one RBI while Johnson had a homer and three RBIs. The Golden Bears had nine players with 2-plus hits on the day, with all nine producing 2-plus hits in game two.

UMD received power from Troy Lynch, going 7-9 with seven runs and 10 RBIs in the doubleheader including 5-6 with five runs, a double, three home runs and nine RBIs in game two.

In the doubleheader, Concordia left 24 runners on base compared to UMD's 12, accounting for the 11-run doubleheader scoring margin. 

GAME 1: UMD 8, CSP 2
The Golden Bears loaded the bases three times against the Bulldogs, but produced only one run on a Koby McBroome RBI single punched through the right side in the fourth inning. 

But Concordia left the bases loaded with one out in the third, only scored one run with the bases loaded and one out in the fourth, and came up empty with bases loaded and two outs in the sixth after pushing a run across on an error earlier in the inning. 

After Fritz Meyer got three quick outs in the first inning on just nine pitches, the Bulldogs started the scoring in the second inning with their first of seven home runs in the doubleheader, a 2-run homer. 

Meyer and the pitching staff held UMD from opening up the big inning in game one, but the Bulldogs were able to score in four-straight frames, picking up two in the second and fifth innings, and one each in the third and fourth. 

Meyer took the loss, falling to 2-5 after allowing four runs in 3.2 innings. Jack Greenlun relieved him in the fourth with runners on second and third and two outs, getting a strikeout to end the UMD threat. 

Greenlun worked 2.1 innings, allowing just one hit to the Bulldogs, but his four walks materialized into four UMD runs. Greenlun also struck out three. Liam Bystol finished the contest for CSP, and didn't allow any runs while getting three outs, with Greenlun's final two runners coming across to score.

McBroome went 2-2 with a walk and an RBI and Eric Berg went 2-4 with a run to lead CSP's lineup.

GAME 2: UMD 27, CSP 22
In game two's slugfest, the teams traded jabs in the first inning, with CSP answering UMD's four runs. The jabs turned into haymakers as the game extended. UMD put up multiple runs in seven of the nine innings with five innings of at least four runs while Concordia had multiple runs in eight of the nine innings with at least three runs in five frames. 

The Bulldogs broke the 4-4 tie in the second inning with an RBI single, bases loaded walk and a grand slam to take a 10-4 lead. It extended to 12-4 with two runs in the top of the fourth.

UMD would hold the lead the rest of the day, but it was far from secure. Concordia scored five in the bottom of the fourth to cut it back to a three-run margin with Tomas Lee following RBI singles by Noah Juliar, Trett Joles and an RBI groundout by Eric Berg by hitting a two-run single. 

The momentum was short-lived, though, as UMD used a three-run homer in a four-run fifth inning to expand the lead back to seven runs, 16-9 as the baseball game evolved into a game of runs more suited for the hardwood. 

Concordia used a big swing to regain some momentum in the bottom of the inning with a three-run homer by Juliar, his fourth of the year. He went 3-5 with five runs, five RBIs, a walk and a homer in the second game and leads the team with a .361 average (66-183). 

And once again, when Concordia comes up with a big hit to get back in the game, UMD erases it. In the sixth, UMD went back up by eight with a four-run inning highlighted by another multi-run homer, a three-run shot for a 20-12 lead.

Trailing by eight with only 12 outs to go, the Golden Bears went on an 8-2 scoring run to pull within two, 22-20, by scoring five in the sixth on a two-run single by Kal Brohmer, a rare sac-fly double play by Juliar and a two-run homer by Kaden Johnson. They picked up three more runs in the eighth on a Joles RBI double and two-run homer by Berg.

In the ninth, UMD kept its foot on the gas, extending the lead to a touchdown margin, 27-20 with five runs. 

Joles would add a two-run homer in the ninth and loaded the bases with one out, but left the tying run on deck in the five-run loss. Joles finished the doubleheader strong, going 4-6 with four runs, four RBIs, a double and a homer. He's multiple hits in five of the last six games, showing no wear and tear from his workload behind the plate as he's increased his season batting average from .266 on April 23 to .324, going 15-24 in that stretch wiht three doubles, three homers, 11 RBIs and nine runs. He's tied with Juliar for the team lead with 33 RBIs and is second on the team in hitting (.324) and home runs (7). 

The 22 runs is the most CSP has scored in a game since February 18, 2024 in a 25-17 win at Newman in the second game of the season last year, a three-game series that saw CSP score 61 runs in a sweep. It's the most runs CSP has scored in a loss since becoming a Division II program in 2000, surpassing the 18 runs scored in a 20-18 loss at Northern State on April 7, 2010, and the 27 runs is the most allowed in a game in CSP's Division II-era.

Concordia had more hits (24) than UMD (22) and more walks (9) than UMD (8). But UMD's five homers turned into 14 runs while CSP's four homers provided nine runs.