Winona State University pulled a stunning victory week at home with a 2–0 against Bemidji State University and 2–1 against the University of Mary. These two wins took them to the top 5 in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC) leaderboard. They are now 11–7 in the conference and 11–7 overall points.

The two matches of the first series of the week were on Wednesday, April 5, 2023. One started at noon and another at 3 p.m. The first match was neck and neck where the Warriors won by 5–4 runs. But in the second match, they had a dominant performance, where the Warriors won by 16–1 runs.

This series is the first clean sweep of the season for the Warriors. All nine runs in the first match were from the first and last innings of the match. The game then became a pitchers’ duel as both teams combined for three hits in the next five innings.

If we look at individual achievements in this match, Peyton Lee from Winona State started on the mound for Winona State, pitching 6.0 innings and allowing two runs, zero earned, on four hits while striking out a pair of batters to earn the win.

Lee trusts his defense a lot as he said, “My mindset on the mound stays pretty consistent, get my pitches to move, keep the ball low in the strike zone, limit hard contact, and let my defense work behind me.”

In game two, the Warriors offense exploded for a season-high 16 runs, and Peter Tveite from Winona State dominated on the mound. Tveite went six innings and allowed just one run on five hits while striking out six batters to pick up the big win.

The second series came out with a lot of twists and the result was not decided on the first day. Even the University of Mary dominated in the second match on Friday. They defeated Winona State 15–3 which is a pretty big score. But a nice comeback from Winona State on Saturday, April 8, 2023, ended the series 2–1 victory for the Warriors.

The first match of series two was on Friday, April 7, 2023, at 1:30 p.m. Winona State won that one by 5–4 runs like the first series. And on day two of the second series on Saturday, April 8, 2023, at noon they confirmed the victory of the series by winning with 6–3 runs.

In the first match Winona State and the University of Mary were deadlocked at 1–1 through two innings before the University of Mary added three runs to take a 4–1 lead midway through the fourth frame. However, Winona State earned a run back in the bottom of the fourth and then scored three in the bottom of the seventh to walk off with a Warrior win. 

In the second match, the University of Mary found themselves up 5–2 after three innings of play and held Winona State to just one more run. Their offensive hitting of the ball got them the rest of the 10 runs to get a dashing win.

In the third match, the Marauders struck first, scoring three unearned runs in the top of the second inning to take an early lead. Winona State equalized the score after the fifth inning and Winona State player Derek Baumgartner drove in two more runs in the sixth inning to extend the Warrior lead to 5–3.

Warrior Coach Seth Wing was happy with his team and said, “We are getting better and better each week and figuring out ways to win ball games. It was good to see it all come together in pitching, hitting, and defense. I’m proud of how our guys are working hard and playing right now!”

Next week Winona State is going to face Southwest Minnesota State University at home. The series will take place on Wednesday, April 12, 2023. The first game will start at 1:30 p.m. and the second one will be starting at 4:30 p.m.

On the weekend on Saturday and Sunday, Winona State will visit Concordia University St. Paul. These games will be interesting, as this will be a fight between the 5th and 6th teams of the NSIC leaderboard. On Saturday, April 15, 2023, they will have two matches. The first one will start at 1:30 p.m. and the second one will start at 3 p.m. On Sunday, April 16, 2023, they will have their final match of the series at noon.