NDSU-UND Baseball Series to be Played at Metrodome Friday-Saturday
3/27/2013 9:06:00 PM | Baseball
THIS WEEK: North Dakota State (10-9) and North Dakota (7-7-1) return to the Metrodome for a four-game baseball series this weekend. NDSU and UND will play a 5 p.m. doubleheader Friday, March 29, and a 12:15 p.m. doubleheader Saturday, March 30. Both days will be a seven-inning game followed by a nine-inning game. Live stats will be available on GoBison.com and the NDSU Bison mobile app for Android, iPhone and iPod Touch.
THE SERIES: UND leads NDSU 95-75-1 in the all-time series dating back to 1910. NDSU is 6-4 against UND since moving to Division I in 2005. The Bison have won five straight in the series including a four-game sweep last year in Fargo and Grand Forks. UND won 3 of 4 in the teams' last visit to the Metrodome on April 4-5, 2010.
ABOUT NORTH DAKOTA: UND has lost four straight games to drop to 7-7-1 overall and has not played since a 4-1 loss at Creighton on March 14. North Dakota played its first eight games in the Metrodome before going on the road March 6-14 with stops at Saint Louis, Omaha, Wichita State and Creighton. UND has two Division I victories this year winning 5-3 and 2-0 at Omaha. Iowa Central transfer Ryan Reese leads the team with a .375 batting average and five doubles in seven games but has missed the last four contests. Valley City State transfer Patrick Vandoorn is the only other .300 hitter with a team-high 14 hits and .368 average. Senior Kris Kwak leads UND with 11 RBIs and sophomore right-hander Andrew Thome leads the pitching staff with 25 strikeouts in 24 2/3 innings. Thome is 2-2 with a 2.19 ERA in four starts and has two complete games including a seven-inning no-hitter over Mount Marty for a 2-1 victory in the season-opener. Head coach Jeff Dodson (Livingston, 1993) has a 71-143-1 record in his fifth season at UND.
BISON SWEEP NORTHERN STATE: North Dakota State is 10-9 overall after sweeping a Metrodome doubleheader from Northern State 5-2 and 16-2 last Saturday. David Ernst pitched four innings and John Straka tossed three scoreless in relief for his first collegiate save in the opener. Two NDSU single-game records were tied in the nightcap. Kyle Kleinendorst tied the mark of five hits going 5-for-6 with a triple and two doubles, and Blake Turbak hit two triples. Trevor Jaunich went five innings for the win and Adam Lambrecht, Simon Anderson, Parker Trewin and Kyle Kingsley each pitched one scoreless inning. The Bison scored 12 of their 16 runs with two outs in the second game.
TWO GAMES CANCELED: North Dakota State has lost two games to weather this year with snow canceling the March 1 game at Tennessee-Martin and the March 26 home game with Concordia Moorhead. NDSU can still afford one more cancellation. The Bison were scheduled to play 59 regular-season games despite the 56-game NCAA maximum.
SCORING TRENDS: North Dakota State has been productive at the plate with two outs this year. NDSU has collected 36 of its 93 RBIs with two outs (38.7 percent). Wes Satzinger leads the Bison with eight two-out RBIs and Turbak and Tim Colwell have seven each. ... NDSU is 0-2 in extra innings and 1-4 in games decided by one or two runs. The Bison were 3-1 in extra innings and went 15-10 in one- and two-run games last year. ... North Dakota State is 7-0 when holding opponents to less than three runs, but the Bison are 0-7 when scoring less than three runs. NDSU is 9-0 when leading after six innings and 8-0 when leading after seven and eight.
BISON IN NCAA STATS: North Dakota State's pitching staff is among the best in the nation in strikeout-to-walk ratio. NDSU ranked 15th with a ratio of 3.00 K/BB and was 46th in strikeouts per nine innings (8.0) in the NCAA stats through March 24. John Straka was seventh in the individual stats with 12.67 K/BB, seventh in walks per nine innings (0.61), 12th in complete games (2) and 13th in WHIP (0.75). Offensively, the Bison ranked 30th in triples per game (0.42), 36th in doubles per game (2.11), and Blake Turbak was 27th in triples per game (0.16).
THREE STRAIGHT PITCHERS OF THE WEEK: North Dakota State had The Summit League's Pitcher of the Week the first three weeks of the season. John Straka earned the first two with six strikeouts in a complete-game 4-0 shutout at Arkansas-Pine Bluff and five strikeouts over eight innings in a 7-2 win at Southeast Missouri State. David Ernst was selected after his first career complete game and shutout in a 5-0 win at Tennessee-Martin, where he tossed four strikeouts in seven innings.
STRAKA CANDIDATE FOR SENOR CLASS AWARD: North Dakota State pitcher John Straka was one of 30 candidates selected for the 2013 Senior CLASS Award® in collegiate baseball. To be eligible, a student-athlete must be classified as an NCAA Division I senior and have notable achievements in four areas of excellence - community, classroom, character and competition. Straka is president in his fourth year of service on the NDSU Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. He's a member of the NDSU President's Council on Alcohol and Other Drugs, and serves on the Presidents' Panel, a committee representing NDSU's major student organizations. His community work includes time with the Fargo-Moorhead Healthcare Equipment Recycling Organization (HERO), Salvation Army, Stocking Stuffers, TNT Kid's Fitness & Gymnastics, and the Frontier Community Service Baseball World Series in Kenai, Alaska.
COLWELL PRESEASON ALL-AMERICA: North Dakota State center fielder Tim Colwell was named to the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association's Preseason All-America third team. Colwell was voted to the All-Midwest Region second team last spring by the American Baseball Coaches Association and was NDSU's first all-region pick at the Division I level. Colwell led North Dakota State with a .381 batting average, 244 at-bats, 93 hits, 62 runs, nine triples, 12 stolen bases, 25 walks, a .438 on-base percentage and a .512 slugging percentage.
KINGSLEY NAMED TO WATCH LIST: North Dakota State's Kyle Kingsley was named to the initial watch list for the ninth annual Stopper of the Year award by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association. Kingsley went 7-4 with five saves and a 2.28 ERA in 26 appearances last year. He had 33 strikeouts and only eight walks in 43 1/3 innings while holding opposing hitters to a .205 batting average. The 75-player watch list will be updated the week of April 16. The national saves leader and four other standout relievers will be selected as finalists June 5. The winner will be announced June 15 at the College World Series.
NDSU PICKED TO WIN SUMMIT: North Dakota State is the unanimous favorite to win its first Summit League baseball championship according to a preseason poll of the league's six head coaches. North Dakota State received all five available first-place votes for 25 points, South Dakota State was second with 17 points, Oakland was third with 16 points, Western Illinois fourth (15), Fort Wayne fifth (9) and Omaha sixth (8). NDSU has made two NCAA tournaments in school history. NDSU was runner-up to Bradley at the 1956 District 5 tournament one game shy of the College World Series, and fell to Missouri State in the championship game of the 1969 College Division Midwest Regional.
BISON COMING OFF RECORD YEAR: North Dakota State set a new school record for wins going 40-20 last year and advancing to the Summit League championship game after placing third in The Summit League with a 14-10 mark. It was just the fourth time NDSU has reached the 30-win mark. The 1996 team won 37 games en route to the North Central Conference Northern Division championship and NCC runner-up finish in the playoffs. NDSU won 32 games in 2000 and won the NCC regular-season title, and the Bison won 31 games in 2004 ending with a North Central Conference tournament championship.
THREE STRAIGHT 20-WIN SEASONS: North Dakota State last year reached the 20-win mark for the third straight season and the 14th time in school history. This is NDSU's sixth season in The Summit League after three seasons as a Division I independent.
|
Year |
Conference |
Overall |
Conf. |
Finish |
|
2005 |
Division I independent |
10-43-1 |
|
|
|
2006 |
Division I independent |
12-41 |
|
|
|
2007 |
Division I independent |
16-31 |
|
|
|
2008 |
The Summit League |
15-30 |
7-16 |
8th |
|
2009 |
The Summit League |
16-28 |
10-14 |
5th |
|
2010 |
The Summit League |
22-30 |
11-16 |
6th, tie |
|
2011 |
The Summit League |
22-32 |
15-12 |
3rd |
|
2012 |
The Summit League |
40-20 |
14-10 |
3rd |
THE COACH: Tod Brown (Arizona, 1994) is in his sixth season as head baseball coach at North Dakota State with a 125-149 record. Brown previously was the pitching coach and recruiting coordinator for eight seasons at Bowling Green, where he was part of two division titles and a regular-season title in the Mid-American Conference. Brown began his collegiate coaching career in 1999 as a volunteer assistant at Arizona. He was a left-handed pitcher for the Wildcats under Hall of Fame coach Jerry Kindall and a member of the 1992 Pac-10 champs.
THE SUMMIT LEAGUE: This is North Dakota State's sixth year in The Summit League, which has six baseball teams – NDSU, Fort Wayne, Oakland, Omaha, South Dakota State and Western Illinois. IUPUI, Kansas City and South Dakota do not have baseball. The Summit was at seven baseball members last year but 15-time defending champion Oral Roberts moved to the Southland Conference and Southern Utah dropped its program to move to the Big Sky Conference. Centenary College in Shreveport was a baseball-playing member until reclassifying to Division III after the 2011 season. First-year league member Omaha is not eligible for postseason competition until the 2016 baseball season. Kansas City will move to the Western Athletic Conference this summer and Denver, another no-baseball school, will join from the WAC.
