Cook burst onto the scene last season for the Sioux as a redshirt junior, batting .328 with six home runs and 28 RBI. All three of those totals ranked second on the team. The Erskine, Minn., native had just three at-bats in his UND career entering the program's first as a Division I member.
Volume 8: Another series split
This past weekend we took on former NCC rival, the Bears of Northern Colorado. Coming into the series, the Bears had only lost to one team in conference, so we knew we would have a tough few games ahead of us.
The first game of the series, we were facing a pitcher who had won the previous two Great West Pitcher of the week honors. He came out and was able to shut down our offense. We didn’t have many hits at all for the game and didn’t score a run until the ninth inning. Their offense came out and jumped all over us. We dropped game one, 16-1.
Saturday was a completely different story. We came out right away and took control of game one early. Sam Anderson went the distance for us on the mound and only allowed one run. For his performance, Anderson was awarded with Great West Pitcher of the Week honors. We took game two of the series 7-1.
Game three of the series was a good overall baseball game. We took the lead early, but the bears were able to battle back and make a game of it. Tensions were high between the two teams after a couple of plays that happened. Brandon Baumgartner was able to come in for the final few innings and completely shut down the Bears’ offense. This helped us tremendously and we were able to post a 10-7 victory.
The final game of the series was another good baseball game. The Bears game out and took the lead early from us. We battled back, but every time we scored they seemed to answer with a run of their own. Trailing 9-5 in the ninth, Jake Magner hit his second home run of the game to cut the lead to 9-7. We were able to make another slight rally and got some guys on base, but the rally fell short and we lost 9-7. This gave us a split for the series.
Next up for us is a series in Chicago against Chicago State. With a good weekend we have the opportunity to really move up in the conference.
