Northern baseball to open season in Kansas this weekend
Despite freezing temperatures and snow, the Northern State baseball team is preparing for the 2022 season campaign and will kick their season off this weekend against a number of schools.
The season will officially kick off on Saturday against Emporia State, and then the Wolves will take on Central Oklahoma on Sunday, followed by two games against Pittsburg State on Monday and Tuesday.
The season is starting earlier than normal because the team was unsure if they would be able to make a trip to Florida for games, NSU Head Coach Dean Berry said.
"So then we’re just trying to find games and this was the weekend that we could find. As time moved on, we were able to figure out that we will have the ability to go to Florida,” Berry said. “If we would’ve known that beforehand, we probably wouldn’t be doing this, but we just kind of combined the two now."
In March, the Wolves will head to the RussMatt Invitational in Central Florida. The tournament hosts more than 250 colleges in a number of divisions including Division I, Division II, Division III, NAIA and JUCO. The Wolves will play West Virginia Wesleyan, D'Youville College, Lewis University, Malone University, Minnesota Crookston and Grand Valley State at that invitational.
This year, the Wolves were tabbed as the 10th team in the conference through a preseason coaches poll. but that's just outside noise for Northern. Augustana was nabbed as the top team in the conference in the preseason poll.
Last season, the Wolves finished 15-22 with a 14-19 record in the conference and ended the season on an eight-game losing streak. Berry said that last season the team's strength was pitching, but they struggled offensively.
“We got to be more offensive, we just didn’t score enough runs. I thought we pitched the ball pretty well last year, but just didn’t have enough offense to cause that separation at times to give us W’s when we needed it," Berry said.
“There was a time where we were playing really good baseball last year, and we just couldn’t put it together down the stretch and we missed out on the playoffs by a game, so that’s the fine line of this league of getting into the playoffs and not,” Berry added.
The hope for Northern is to return to the conference tournament – which they last appeared in 2019. The 2020 tournament was canceled.
“The expectation is that we’re going to be really competitive in an extremely competitive league. I say this all time, but the league has really transformed into one of the best, I believe in the country. From top to bottom, it’s a challenge, week in and week out, and that’s what I think makes it so enjoyable the high competitive league that it is,” Berry said.
For Northern, the top returners are catcher Spencer Sarringar and pitcher Seth Brewer. Last season, Sarringar was selected to the NSIC All-Defensive team and Brewer made first-team all-conference honors.
Last season, Brewer went 6-1 on the hill in 13 appearances with a 2.97 earned run average. Sarringar went .279 at the plate with 31 hits, 24 runs batted in and four home runs.
Northern will also look for contributions from veterans on the team. Some of those players include junior third baseman Jack Paulson, senior Austin Portner – who missed a good chunk of last year due to a hand injury and Reece Ragatz, who will also be returning from injury. There are nine seniors on this year's squad for Northern.
With the experience on the roster, there will also be a number of young players that the team will look toward for production.
“(We’re) looking for some of the younger guys that are getting their opportunities to step up and take that next step,” Berry said.
Berry said that this year he expects his team to be strong defensively, and will look for contributions on the mound.
“We’re gonna ask a lot of the guys to contribute, particularly on the hill. This is why we’re (competing this weekend) so we can go find out what we’re all about and see where we do fit in and see what needs to be addressed as we head into the rest of our non-conference schedule," Berry said.
Northern State will open its home portion of conference play on April 6 with a doubleheader against Wayne State at Fossum Field.
“We’ve worked extremely hard up to this point and are pretty excited for this first opportunity to compete against somebody else and kind of see where we’re at and where we go from here,” Berry said.
The season for Northern will open on Saturday against Emporia State at 6 p.m., at the Edmond First Pitch Classic.
This article originally appeared on Aberdeen News: Northern State baseball to open season against Emporia State
