MIAC Baseball Playoffs

#4 seed Augsburg College (22-16, 12-8 MIAC)
Augsburg College will be competing in the MIAC baseball tournament for the first time in school history, capping a remarkable rebuilding job in recent years for the Auggie program.

On a team with just two seniors, the Auggies enter this weekend's tournament with the school's third 20-win season in baseball since 1992. Augsburg's 12-8 MIAC record was its first above-.500 finish in league play since 1992 (also 12-8).

This is Augsburg's first postseason appearance since it appeared in the NCAA Division III national playoffs in the 1986 and 1987 seasons. Winners of 10 MIAC regular-season titles all-time, the Auggies last won the conference crown in 1987 with a school-record 31-10 (16-4 MIAC) mark.

Since 1988, the Auggies had struggled, with only two winning seasons (1992, 23-17 and 1988, 14-13-2), one other 20-win season (20-22 in 2001) and seven seasons with single-digit overall wins before this year. From 1993-2004, the Auggies didn’t finish better than 7-13 in MIAC play each season.

Much of the improvement in Augsburg's baseball program can be attributed to its second-year head coach, 2005 MIAC Co-Coach of the Year Keith Bateman. A three- time All-MIAC catcher (1996-98) in his playing days at Bethel, Bateman inherited the Auggie program in 2004. He was the third head coach in a three- year span at Augsburg.

Taking a team that had went 18-53-2 in the previous two seasons (9-24-2 in 2003, 9-29 in 2002), Bateman's Auggies finished 16-22 in his first year in 2004, setting the stage for the team's dramatic playoff run this year.

A key player for the Auggies this season has been All-MIAC third baseman/pitcher Darren Ginther, who transferred to Augsburg last year after playing his freshman campaign at Division I Valparaiso (Ind.). He has been one of the top hitters in the MIAC this year, with a .437 average (just Augsburg's fourth .400 hitter since 1988), to go with team highs in hits (55), runs (34), extra-base hits (17), slugging percentage (.659) and on-base percentage (.523). As Augsburg's No. 2 starting pitcher, Ginther has a 4.61 ERA and a 5-3 record in 11 starts.

Two-time All-MIAC senior pitcher Jeremy Nelson has been the ace of the staff, with an 8-2 record, 2.92 ERA and 37 strikeouts against just 10 walks this season. Reliever Tyler Kraft has appeared in 22 games this season with a 4-1 record, five saves and 29 strikeouts against just six walks.

All-MIAC catcher Troy Deden, who transferred from St. Mary's after his freshman season, is hitting .383 with a team-high 35 RBI. Senior first baseman Taylor Pagel is hitting .280 with 24 RBI and nine extra-base hits.

Infielders Matt Johnson and Andrew Werner and outfielders Ricky Schreier, Brian Bambenek and Jeff Stomberg have had strong seasons as regulars in the Auggie lineup.

#3 seed Concordia College, Moorhead (17-19, 12-8 MIAC)
Concordia is making their third straight MIAC Playoff appearance and fourth in the past five years. Concordia is one of only three teams in the league that has played in at least four conference tournaments. St. Thomas (6) and St. Olaf (6) are the only other MIAC teams that have made more appearances in the postseason.

Concordia has a 1-6 record in their previous three appearances in the MIAC tournament. The Cobbers lone win came against St. Olaf in the opening game of the 2001 tournament. Concordia’s first-round game with the Oles in 2005 marks the fourth consecutive tournament that Concordia has played at least one game against St. Olaf. The Cobbers have faced St. Olaf in every one of their three MIAC postseason appearances. The Cobbers have a 1-4 record against the Oles, with St. Olaf eliminating Concordia in two of the three past tournament appearances.

The Cobbers are the first team since the league began sponsoring a post-season tournament to make the playoffs with an overall losing record. Concordia enters the 2005 MIAC tournament with a 17-19 record. The only other teams to finish at the .500 level were St. Mary’s (15-15) in 2002 and Macalester (17-17) in 2000.

Concordia’s non-conference schedule was the toughest in recent history. The Cobbers played 16 games outside the MIAC and amassed a 5-11 record. The eight non-NCC Division I teams that Concordia faced had a combined winning percentage of .631 (207-121). Six of the eight non-conference foes won more than 20 games and three won more than 30 games.

The 12-8 conference record for Concordia marks the seventh straight season that the Cobbers have won at least 10 MIAC games in a season. It is also the 17th time in the past 18 years that Concordia has posted at least a .500 record in conference play. The only season that it didn’t have double-digit MIAC wins was in 1998 when the Cobbers went 9-11.

Concordia head coach Bucky Burgau is the winningest coach in the history of the MIAC. Entering the 2005 MIAC tournament he has amassed a 325-128 mark in conference play and a 523-389-6 overall record. He is 18th on the list of winningest active coaches by victories in NCAA Division III. In the past 15 years, he has only had two losing seasons.

The 2005 season marks the 74th campaign of the Concordia baseball program. Cobber baseball started in 1920 and has been a staple at the college for all but 12 years since that first season. The Cobbers have not missed a year since the 1946 season. Entering 2005, Concordia had amassed a 733-557-7 overall record and a 403-272 mark in the MIAC.

#2 seed St. Olaf College (23-15. 13-7 MIAC)
Second-seeded St. Olaf will try to ride pitching, defense and experience in close games to become the fifth two seed in the six-year history to win the MIAC Playoffs.

The Oles led the MIAC in team ERA (2.75) and fielding percentage (.968) this season.

The St. Olaf pitching staff is led by All-MIAC pick Will Huepenbecker, Dan O'Malley, Paul Johnson and Eric Tobias. Huepenbecker was 4-2 with a 2.66 ERA in six starts in league play, striking out 30 and walking 12 in 40-plus innings of work. O'Malley was 4-1 in MIAC play, throwing four complete game wins, including a pair of two-hit shutouts and a May 4 win over league-champion St. Thomas. Johnson allowed just four walks in 27-plus inning in league play and his 2.66 ERA was good for seventh in the league.Tobias, an All-MIAC pick in 2004, was 3-2 with a 3.38 ERA in 32 innings.

Shortstop Brett Thoreson and third baseman Chris Terrazas were also named All-MIAC. Terazzas was fifth in the league in hitting at .416, with seven doubles and a homerun in MIAC action. Thoreson hit .367 and fielded .919 in conference play.

The Oles, after winning the regular season title in the first three years of the tournament’s existence, lost to second-seeded St. Thomas in the tournament's finale in 200, 2001 and 2002. In 2003, roles reversed, and second seeded St. Olaf won the crown. St. Thomas became the first top seed to win the tourney in 2004.

Twenty-six of St. Olaf's 38 games have been decided by margins of three runs or less, which may be advantageous to the Oles. In last year’s tournament, one run decided four of the six games. In fact, 10 of the last 12 tournament games have been decided by two runs or less. Only one game in the last two tournaments was greater than a three-run margin - the Ole’s 7-0, loser’s bracket win over Concordia in 2004, a game in which Tobias fanned 18, a MIAC Playoff record.

The Oles are 3-9 in one-run games, 7-2 in two-run games and 1-4 in three run contests.

The Oles and Cobbers split their regular-season series April 30 at St. Olaf's Mark Almli Field. The schools have met four times in the MIAC Playoffs young, six-year history. St. Olaf has won three of those four MIAC tournament games, but in 2001 the fourth-seeded Cobbers beat the top-seeded Oles.

#1 seed University of St. Thomas (27-10, 17-3 MIAC)
The 2005 Tommies won the MIAC regular-season title for the third year in a row and seventh time in 10 seasons. Next up is the MIAC Playoffs, a format in which St. Thomas has a 13-4 all-time record in the event's five-year history. The Tommies took the championship from 2000-2003 and again in 2005, and will look to find the right blend of effective pitching and timely hitting to make another push to the crown.

Coach Dennis Denning expects a three-prong challenge at this weekend's double-elimination MIAC tournament. Perennial playoff finalist St. Olaf has excellent pitching depth and fielding, plus a mix of youth and experience at the plate. Always-dangerous Concordia has a good blend of pitching and power hitting. Augsburg has at least three strong pitchers and will come in loose and confident as it plays in the postseason for the first time in nearly 20 seasons. The Tommies are 5-1 vs. these teams thus far but needed clutch sixth- and seventh-inning home runs to pull out a comeback win against each

team.

St. Thomas has won 17 of its last 19 games and won the conference by a four-game margin - the second-best cushion in MIAC baseball history. In their last eight games, the Tommies have received 18 home runs from nine different players. In six conference victories - and nine overall wins - St. Thomas was tied or trailed in the sixth or seventh innings. That ability to win close games could be a factor this weekend. The Toms also played another challenging schedule, including a game against Division I University of Minnesota and five non-conference games against teams currently ranked in the Division III top 30.

The biggest question for UST comes with its young pitching corps. The Tommies had four proven starters in last year's 38-8 finish, but three graduated and a fourth transferred to a junior college. Denning recently lost two starters to season-ending injuries, so he'll need several arms to step up and pitch well to make a title run. The coach hopes he can use senior Brian Krause to close out one or more games or possibly take the ball as a starter. Krause has worked in 84 games and ranks third on the Division III charts for career appearances.

The Tommies' defense -- led by shortstop Mike Kimlinger, catcher Zach Goldberg and first-baseman Sean Young -- has the potential to bail out the pitchers. UST arguably has the deepest offensive bench, which may become a factor in a two- or three-day tourney with players who are accustomed to chip in a quality at-bat in a pinch-hit role.

Offensively, the Tommies are batting .326, average more than eight runs a game, and have 132 extra-base hits to just 62 allowed. Ten starters or platoon players are batting .309 or higher. Senior outfielders Brett Olson (188 hits and 83 steals in 160 career games) and Josh Howard and junior OF-DH Jordan Roering and Mike Moran bring a good mix of power, speed and average. Kimlinger has hit safely in nine games in a row, and Jake Schraufnagel is 11-for-20 (.550) with 10 RBI, nine runs, two homers and three doubles in his last seven games.