NSIC Baseball Tournament Bracket

MANKATO, Minn. – Behind another strong starting pitching performance, the No. 12 ranked St. Cloud State Huskies defeated Minnesota State University, Mankato 3-2 in the third round of the NSIC tournament Friday afternoon at Franklin Rodgers Park.

The Huskies (45-10) have now won a school record 20-straight games as junior Scott Lieser (Browerville) gave up just one run on six hits in his first outing since throwing a no-hitter April 27 to down the No. 5 nationally ranked Mavericks (41-10). Lieser (9-4) struck out five of 29 batters faced on exactly 100 pitches, while not allowing a walk in the game.

St. Cloud State will now play in the NSIC Championship for the second straight season at noon Saturday. The Huskies will play the winner of the 7:00 p.m. game tonight, which will be between Minnesota State and the winner of the game between Augustana College and Winona State University.

Also for the second game of the NSIC tournament, sophomore Kyle Fischer (New Ulm) came in to shut the door for SCSU as tournament’s top seeded team made things interesting in the bottom of the ninth the Huskies. Fischer came in after MSU drew a leadoff walk and got two quick outs, but had to work hard for the final out as the Mavericks then had two straight singles and scored a run on an infield single that hit junior Sean Borman’s (Minnetonka) glove and rolled towards the middle of the field. Then with two runners on and two down, Fischer got a clutch ground out ball to junior Steve Rindelaub (St. Cloud) to close out the game and earn his third save of the season and second in the tournament.

For the second straight day, the Huskies got on the board with an early two-out rally as senior Joey Benke (Roseau) and junior Brian Hansen (Cold Spring) both got singles with two down.

MSU senior starter Ben Kincaid then walked three straight batters two put the Huskies up 2-0 after the top of the first.

Borman, freshman Mike Jurgella (Plover, Wis.) and junior Joey Althoff (Delano) all drew walks in the first with Jurgella and Althoff both earning a RBI.

Kincaid took the loss after giving up all three runs on seven hits, while striking out seven batters, before TJ Hanson threw four strikeouts in three solid innings in relief for MSU.

MSU then added a run in the third on a RBI single from Matt Kuchenbecker to cut the lead in half before Borman again was involved with a Husky scoring inning.

Borman took back the two-run lead and ultimately drove in the winning run in the fifth inning with his ninth home run of the season that went over the 383 foot marker in right center field to make it a 3-1 game.

The Huskies had three players with multi-hit games, while Minnesota State’s Connor McCallum went 4-for-4 from the eight spot to lead the Mavericks.