SEWARD, Neb. – The season is still relatively young, but the Concordia University Baseball team is proving that it will eat mediocre pitching alive. After homering nine times in Saturday’s doubleheader sweep, the Bulldogs went deep another eight times on Sunday (March 20) in a pair of victories over Hastings. It was a bad sign for the Broncos when the day began with a strong wind blowing straight out to left. Concordia won by scores of 13-5 and 10-3 with the help of five hits from Joey Grabanski and two homers apiece from Ben Berg and Jaidan Quinn.
The weekend only confirmed that Head Coach Ryan Dupic’s squad remains one of the league’s heavyweights. The Bulldogs are now 15-6-1 overall on the strength of a five-game win streak. Hastings slipped to 4-16 (0-4 GPAC).
“It’s kind of the story of the weekend – our offense really carried us and did a great job,” Dupic said. “Days like this when the wind is blowing out (is advantageous for us). We got into some plus counts and we have some guys who can really drive the baseball. A couple big swings really blew the games open today. They did an excellent job all weekend.”
Hastings center fielder Keaton Hoeke even robbed Quinn of a home run or it would have been nine team blasts for a second day in a row. In game one on Sunday, the long balls were delivered by Keaton Candor, Ben Berg (twice) and Jakob Faulk. Then in game two, Grabanski, Alec Blakestad and Quinn (twice) went yard as part of the explosion. By day’s end, Concordia hitters combined for 28 hits, 11 walks and four hit-by-pitches.
Just back from injury this weekend, Berg did not show any rust. He went 4-for-4 with two blasts and five RBIs in game one – this after he went 2-for-5 with a homer on Saturday. Also in Sunday’s opener, Jay Adams, Jakob Faulk, Jesse Garcia and Grabanski collected multiple hits. Faulk’s three-hit game featured a towering solo shot in the second. The Bulldogs did not even blink after the Broncos put four runs on the board in the top of the first. Concordia proceeded to score two in the first, one in the second, three in the third, six in the fourth and one in the sixth.
Blakestad then highlighted the offensive output in game two. He went 4-for-4 with two runs, a home run, four RBIs and two stolen bases. Quinn also drove in four runs with his two homers. Meanwhile, Grabanski went 3-for-3 with two runs and two RBIs. Garcia added a base hit and two runs in the second contest.
As for the pitching staff, Christian Gutierrez gave four strong innings in relief in game one, allowing just one run on three hits and two walks to go along with five strikeouts. Gutierrez picked up the win. Nathan Buckallew followed him with 2.1 shutout frames to seal the deal. In game two, Caden Johnson went 5.1 strong innings (two runs allowed) before handing the ball off to Jacob Lycan, Ben Coldiron and Shane Whittaker.
The progress of the pitching staff and defense behind it may ultimately decide whether the Bulldogs repeat as GPAC champions. Said Dupic, “It’s going to be a tough year. There are some good teams in the league and you can see some teams are playing really good baseball right now. We’re just trying to take this one day at a time. We’ll take any wins we can get. That’s why it was a big weekend to start off so well. It’s going to be a really competitive weekend this year. We just have to stay the course and keep trying to get better.”
Over the four weekend games, eight Bulldogs produced at least five combined hits. Grabanski led the way by going 11-for-15 with three doubles, two homers and seven RBIs. Adams and Berg drove in eight runs apiece on the weekend. Nine Concordia players also homered at least once over the weekend.
The Bulldogs will remain at home for a four-game series coming up Thursday-Friday (March 24-25) with Northwestern (10-10, 2-2 GPAC). In their opening weekend of conference action, the Red Raiders were swept at Mount Marty and then rebounded by taking two at home from Hastings.