The Wolves (18-16,12-10 NSIC) knocked out 43 hits and 36 runs in day one to sweep Minot State (10-21, 7-13 NSIC) on the road. Northern State has now climbed to a 6th place tie in the conference race and is over .500 for the first time this conference season, with 14 conference games remaining.
Game 1
A bad to the weekend as starter
Kassidy Gaines didn't record an out and the Minot bats took advantage and got off to a first inning lead of 6-1.
Phil Sauer, in relief of Gaines pitched the next 3 innings and only gave a 2 runs over the course of his outing. The Wolves scratched back with 2 runs in the 2nd inning and 4 runs in the 3rd, to cut the lead to 8-7. The bats got hot in the 4th and 6th inning, scoring 5 runs in the 4th and 8 runs in the 6th to win by a total of 20-8.
Erick Cervenka came in relief of Sauer and threw 2.1 scoreless, to earn his 3rd victory of the season.
Eric O'Bryan and
Jack Schmidt led the way with 4 hits. Schmidt, who collected 3 RBIs, was a homerun short of the cycle.
Clayton Nutting,
Alex Cornwell and
Buddy Traxler each collected 3 hits. Traxler connected for his 2nd homer of the season, while Cornwell hit his 6th of the year.
Game 2
In the 2nd inning,
Jack Schmidt got hit by a pitch, then scored off of
Buddy Traxler's RBI double. After a Cornwell single, Nutting went deep for a 3 run homerun. After Minot hit a solo homerun in the bottom on the 2nd, the 3rd inning started with a
Mark Abrahamson single and a
Riley Shintaffer double before
Jack Schmidt hit a 3 run homerun to make it 7-1. The Wolves tacked on another unearned run to make it 8-1 then both teams went scoreless until the 6th inning.
Tyler Gripentrog and
Lucas Lorenz singled and were knocked in on Abrahamson's 3 run homer.
James Georgakas, who cruised through the first 5 innings, didn't get an out in the bottom of the 6th inning. Georgakas gave up 3 homeruns and then reliever
Dillon Lee came on and gave up a glandslam all in the bottom of the 6th to make the score 11-9. Both teams traded runs in the 7th inning and the Wolves finished off the Beavers in the 9th with Abrahamson's 2nd homer of the game to make the final score 16-10. Abrahamson finished going 3-6 with 5 RBIs and 2 homeruns. Nutting went 4-5 with 3 RBIs and a homer. Georgakas improves to 4-1 on the season.
Northern clashes with Minot tomorrow, with the game time slated for noon.
