The St. Cloud State University baseball team (39-8) opened play in the 2016 NSIC Baseball tournament with a big 17-3 victory over Minnesota Crookston (25-20) on Thursday, May 12 at Dick Putz Field in St. Cloud, Minn.

The Huskies will now advance to play Augustana University at 10:00 a.m. on Dick Putz Field on Friday, May 13 in second round play.  In the other first round game on Joe Faber Field on May 13, #1 seed Minnesota Duluth will match up against Concordia-St. Paul at 10 a.m.

In the match up against UMC, the Huskies charted 21 hits while limiting UMC to just seven hits over nine innings.  SCSU took command of the game with an 8-run effort in the second inning.  SCSU added two runs in the third and finished with three runs apiece in the sixth and seventh inning to ice the contest.

At the plate, SCSU was led by Brandon Arnold, Reese Gregory and Zak Hoffman who all hit home runs in the contest.  Arnold had three hits and two RBIs in the game, while Jackson Goplen had four hits (and three doubles), three runs and four RBIs in the game.  Huskies with two hits apiece in the game included Kyle Lieser, Zach Hoffmann (two doubles), Karl Sorensen, Zach Metzger and Judd Davis.  Hoffman also had three hits in the game for the Huskies.

Dominic Austing improved to 2-0 on the season with his 3.0 innings of relief work.  He had three strikeouts and allowed four hits and one run in the game.  Kevin Bolder started the game with 3.0 innings or work that included five strikeouts and one hit allowed.  Tyler Gentz, Matt Butler and Ryan Diers all contributed innings of relief work to complete the game for SCSU.  Overall, SCSU's pitchers had 11 strikeouts in the game.

In the other first round games on May 12, Minnesota Duluth gained a 10-1 win over Sioux Falls, Concordia St. Paul defeated Minnesota State 8-4 and Augustana defeated Northern State 8-4.