SCSU Baseball Headed For NCAA Tournament

The St. Cloud State baseball team has advanced to the NCAA Tournament for a fourth straight season. The Huskies were named the sixth seed in the Central Region, and will travel to Magnolia, Arkansas to take on #3 Central Oklahoma Thursday night.

The Huskies went 1-2 in the NSIC Tournament, starting with a blowout win over Winona State but culminating with a pair of losses to Augustana and Minot State.

“We won 23-0 in our first game, then lost a nail-biter to a really good Augustana team,” coach Pat Dolan said. “The tournament started great, didn’t finish that great, but we did enough to make it into the (NCAA) Tournament I guess.”

The Huskies were firmly on the bubble heading into Sunday night’s selection show, with the coaches and players unsure if SCSU would make the field.

“It was a pretty cool moment because I felt like we would make it, but it wasn’t a slam dunk,” Dolan said. “There was some nail-biting going on there until they announced us as the sixth seed.”

SCSU has overcome a lot of adversity on their way to the postseason, with the weather acting up in March/April and the team suffering a rash of injuries throughout the season. The Huskies will have just ten position players healthy in Arkansas.

“We haven’t had more than one or two injuries in a season in more than ten years, but we are down to 21 healthy players on our roster right now,” Dolan said. “It’s amazing how they just went through it and never complained about it.”

After a spring full of long bus rides and schedule changes, the Huskies will fly out to Dallas, then take a four-hour bus ride to Magnolia. The team was provided a charter flight last season, and the NCAA also provides meal money for the postseason.

“We get to eat like kings with the meal money, and last year we got a charter flight so (the NCAA) takes care of us from here on out,” Dolan said.

The Huskies and Central Oklahoma will play at 8:30 CST Thursday night.