At a 10-15 record so far this season, Winona State baseball hosted St. Cloud State University on Sunday, April 2 and Monday, April 3 for a three-game series.  

The Warriors had come off a few days since their doubleheader against Minot State on Tuesday where they split. 

On Sunday, the two teams were tied up until the fifth inning when St. Cloud took the lead. The Warriors scored three runs in the first inning off a double from Josh Hawksford, scoring Derek Baumgartner and a single to right field from Ryland Wall which scored Hawksford and Cooper Kapanke.  

The Warriors would not score again until the bottom of the fifth, after the Huskies had gained nine runs since the third inning.  

While the Warriors finished the last two innings with two points to the Huskies’ three, it was not enough to keep them afloat with an end score of 12-5. 

Game two brought perseverance from Winona State as the team started off strong in the second inning with a run from Hawksford off a swing from Wall.  

The bottom of the third came with another point for Payton Beyer off a Baumgartner single to right field, Beyer’s third career point so far.  

With the score evened out by the end of the fourth off a Beyer double to score Wall, the next two innings brought no runs for either team before Carter Brinkman showed what he came to Loughrey Field for in the seventh inning.  

“The homerun felt great to help us get a lead,” Brinkman said, “which led to a big win for us.” 

The fifth-year from Sleepy Eye, Minn. was put in as a designated hitter for Sean Menzel at the bottom of the sixth and after one strikeout, he found his groove.  

With three singles in the inning already and two runs, Brinkman hit a homer with Hawksford and Kapanke on base, bringing the Warriors ahead by three after a cat and mouse game so far.  

While the Huskies were able to get one more single to score twice, it was not enough to surpass Winona State with an ending score of 8-7.  

After a night’s rest to reset, the team faced St. Cloud once more on Monday afternoon.  

Both teams started the game strong with two runs for the Huskies in the first and one for the Warriors off yet another double from Baumgartner.  

After another run in the second from Wall off Kyle Yu, the Warriors had a few scoreless innings before regaining strength in the bottom of the fifth with a home run from Kapanke to score himself and Mason Trocke. 

Hawksford finished out the game with a ground ball to shortstop, scoring Baumgarter.  

The 1-2 series moves the team to 11-17 this season and 7-6 in NSIC play. 

The Warriors are next in action on Wednesday, April 5 at 12 p.m. and 2 p.m. against the Bemidji State Beavers, who have a 1-12 record this season in the conference.  

After that doubleheader, the Warriors stay home for a three-game series against University of Mary on Friday and Saturday. The Marauders stand 5-7 this year so far, putting the ball in Winona State’s diamond. 

“We got a lot of young guys that have stepped up on the mound,” Josh Gullickson said. “And I think that if everything kind of starts clicking towards the end of the year, we could really make a run at it [Conference Champs].”  

Tune into KQAL 89.5 for a live update on games and catch up in the paper edition of The Winonan next Wednesday.