With finals week in full swing that means the guys are busy in the library and baseball equipment is all packed up and ready to be brought home. The team made it to the District V tournament held in Sheboygan, WI on May 2-4. The team headed into round one as the underdog against the Number 2 team in the land Grand Valley State University. With a depleted pitching staff missing Junior Marshall Dalziel, Sophomore lefty Derek Plath and Freshman Sensation Sam Elliott, Junior hard-throwing Austin Nordby was called upon to shut down the high powered offense of Grand Valley. He did just that in his six innings of work, scattering three hits walking five and striking out eight. Grand Valley opened the scoring in the bottom on the Second. Minnesota responded with two in the top of the Third. The score stayed the same until the top of the Seventh when Minnesota pushed one more across to take the lead going into the bottom of the seventh. In the bottom of the seventh GVS pushed two across to tie it up. In the top of the ninth Minnesota regained the lead once again. That one run is all Freshman Standout Aaron Schwecke needed to secure the win. Aaron came into the game in the bottom of the seventh with the bases loaded and got a fly-out to end the inning and pitched 2 1/3 innings of scoreless baseball. When all was said and done Minnesota pulled a 1980 USA Men’s hockey upset against the USSR. With a depleted pitching staff the team did the best that they could and ultimately lost two games Saturday to eventual Champions MSUM 5-2 in the first game and GVS got their revenge with an 11-2 win in the night cap. The team achieved their goal of making the tournament and now going into next year the goal is making it to the World Series.
The team has a lot planned for next year with games and trips. The team wants to get around twenty plus games with the twelve they are guaranteed with conference play. Plus the team has a lot of teams in the cities to play like the MIAC schools and a handful of Junior College teams as well. Next year the team will be heading to Florida over spring break to play around six games throughout the week with a couple beach days in there as well. Plus, who does not want to go to Florida over spring break? Should be a great week of baseball for the team.
The team loses eight seniors that played big roles in the line-up and great leadership, but the team will be returning a lot of good talent that will play a big role in the line-up next year. The returners combined to hit .291 (85-292), 37 RBI’s and 13 stolen bases. The team will return key Freshman utility player Aaron Schwecke who batted .406(13-32) and a team lead 4 Stolen Bases. Aaron also threw 6 1/3 innings with a 0.00 ERA. Aaron was named “Rookie of The Year” and rightfully so.
The pitching staff returns all of the vital guys who ate up most of the innings this season. The returners combined for 79 innings and 72 strikeouts. The leading innings eater was Austin Nordby who threw 15 2/3 innings, 24 strikeouts and a 2.30 ERA. Three pitchers who went down with injuries that look to get healthy for the fall are Marshall Dalziel with lingering shoulder problems, Derek Plath irritating forearm pains, Sam Elliott with hip surgery scheduled for May 19th. We hope that we can get these guys healthy for the fall to help lead us to that District V Tournament Birth once again.
We cannot say thank you enough to all of you who have showed up to our games whether it was in the Twin Cities or in Thunder Bay, Ontario. You guys are the fuel to the fire to help make us perform better not only as individuals but as a whole team. We really hope that with this past season making it to playoffs that will be fuel to the fire as well to perform that much better than any other team. We do also enjoy the emails we get about the site and how it helps families stay in touch with their favorite players. As always follow us on good ole twitter @umnclubbaseball and shoot us emails at umnclubbaseball@yahoo.com. We look forward to seeing you at the field next year!
~Staff~