The Northern Sun Conference has named their players of the week for the week ending on March 3rd and they are -
Player of the Week was Concordia’s Bryan Lippincott. The freshman from Des Moines, IA hit a solo, walk-off homer in a game last Tuesday against St. Johns to win it for the Golden Bears by the score of 8-7. He also hit a homer in the 2nd game of the day to help the team to a sweep and finish the day 3-9 at the plate.
Pitcher of the Week was also from Concordia, Ben Lemke. The freshman from Rosemount, MN came into the 2nd game against St. Johns and threw 4.1 innings of no-hit baseball to earn his first career win. The performance included 4 strikeouts to go with 1 walk and improved his ERA to 1.12 on the season. NSIC Press Release
The Rant!
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I have nothing against these 2 players – they are deserving choices. But why would you pick 2 guys from the same team when there were so many other great performances this past week?
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Add to that, Concordia beat St. Johns! We’re talking about a Division 3 team that really isn’t that good. They are 1-4 this season and below .500 last season.
The Alternatives?
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How about recognizing someone from Winona State who just beat the #1 team in D2 instead of a mediocre D3 team? Leadoff hitter, Tony Mueller, had 8 hits in 3 games this week! Pitcher, Kyle Hanken, came in with the game on the line in a tied, late inning battle and shut Lynn down for 2 innings to get what will possibly be their biggest win of the year.
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Maybe recognize someone at Minnesota State like shortstop Kosuke Hattori who was 6-10 in 2 games or pitcher Patrick Lenton who pitched 6 innings of 4 hit, 1 run baseball to get a win.
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St. Cloud State’s starting pitcher, Logan Birr, had an outstanding game against Bemidji State in pitching a complete game, 6 hit, 1 run game that included 7 strikeouts and no walks.
Rant off.
2009 Concordia University Baseball Schedule
Date Opponent Location Time/Result
Feb. 4 Northern State (2) Metrodome W, 4-0 ; W, 19-0
Feb. 6 U-Mary (2) Metrodome W, 4-0 ; 8-3 (6) – !
Feb. 10 Minnesota Duluth (2) Metrodome W, 8-4 ; L, 1-9
Feb. 25 St. John’s (MN) (2) Metrodome W, 8-7 ; W, 15-7
Mar. 3 Grand View (IA) University (2) Metrodome 12:15
Mar. 5 Mayville State (ND)
Nice schedule so far. Helps the stats I guess. Not a team so far that should have beat them.
Hey Wow,
Duluth has a decent team – no dishonor with them getting the split there.
I’m sure it’s tough to get a lot of games against different teams without running up a lot of expenses. I actually expect to see a lot more northern teams next year taking fewer trips south as athletic department expense budgets are in for some serious cuts in the current economy. One of the coaches I talked to this past week directly said they are in for expense cuts.
I agree with the Duluth team.
The players of the week are picked by the coaches in the league I do believe. So they must think those are the players who they think performed the best last week and its hard to put anyone else in place of Lippincott when you hit a walk off homerun and hit a homerun in the next game to help push CU ahead for good in game two to win. With the pitching maybe could be some just as deserving as Lemke if not more, but they coaches didn’t think so it looks like. Yes I know support CU and this can be taken as backing up choices which some what is but more so stating the facts as I believe they are with the voting of players of the week.
The NSIC League Office selects players of the week.
I have no problem with two CU players being chosen this week….cause the Wildcats were off this week
I think it’s great to see so many NSIC teams taking advantage of the Metrodome in February and March … If we, WSC, were closer I would schedule all pre-conference/spring trip games there…Geography and money put the nix on that for us … but good for the rest. To keep baseball strong in the NSIC the Dome has to be utilized in February and March … hope availability doesn’t change .. I hear it might.
Good Luck All,
Coach Mags
Thanks Coach!
It’s great to have you participating at the blog. Glad we were able to get the details on how the players are actually selected. Based on the fact that it’s the league office, my rant still stands.
Good luck on Friday against Southern Indiana!
Coach Manganaro—Thanks for correcting me on my statement with who votes players of the week. I guess I assumed coaches voted since they vote for the conference teams at the end of the season at the conference tourny. Good Luck during your trip to GA.
Last year the NSIC sponsored a weekend in the dome and brought in teams like Winona and SMSU. Why didn’t they do that this year for some of the further out teams?
Hi Pauls,
I’m not sure the NSIC is really involved in non-conference scheduling. It’s strange that SMSU hasn’t even played a game yet – you would have thought it would have made sense for them to try to get to Minneapolis for some games instead of waiting over a month into the season to start playing.
The players must be getting tired of just practicing and not getting into the swing of things. This would not be for me.