Apr. 10—BEMIDJI — When the Beavers' bats are hot, they can be a problem for opposing pitchers.
The Bemidji State baseball team racked up 15 runs in its doubleheader against Minnesota Duluth Thursday afternoon at the BSU Baseball Field. The Beavers secured a 9-6 win in game one before suffering a 16-6 loss to the Bulldogs in game two.
BSU tallied 11 hits in its win, led by Matt Filippi's three. Though the sophomore pitcher/designated hitter led the way, the Beavers had production up and down the order.
Senior rightfielder Zach Evenson collected a pair of hits, notching three RBIs in the process. Sophomore shortstop Beau Thoma also tallied a couple hits, as well as a trio of runs. Four other batters finished game one with at least one hit.
"They feed off each other," BSU head coach Matt Ellinghuysen said. "One guy after another, they know that if somebody maybe doesn't get a hit in the spot that the next guy's going to pick him up, so that's huge."
Filippi also managed to pick up a win on the mound, tossing four innings and allowing six hits, four runs and three earned runs as the starting pitcher.
BSU's batters cooled off at the beginning of game two, as UMD leapt out to a 12-1 lead through the first five innings. But then, the Beavers started to show some fight.
In the top of the seventh, Thoma drove a single up the middle to send a run home. Evenson kept the runs coming in at the very next at bat, cracking a two-RBI double to right centerfield.
Bemidji State added a couple more runs in the eighth, capitalizing on a couple hits by pitches, a wild pitch, two steals, a throwing error, a passed ball and a single from Filippi.
Though the Bulldogs pulled away in the eighth to win the game with a 10-run lead, Ellinghuysen was heartened by the fight shown despite the early lopsided score.
"We could've mailed it in, and we could've got 10 runned in seven innings," Ellinghuysen said. "The guys continue to show up and keep fighting no matter what the score is, which has been huge. And they understand that it's the game of baseball.
"That's the beauty of it, that we have a lot of games in a short period of time, so you have to be kind of short-minded in the sense that, hey, if one pitch, one inning doesn't maybe go right, your opportunity is going to come up before (you know it) and you have to be ready, because if you're not, obviously it snowballs."
BSU finished with nine hits, led by Thoma and Evenson's two apiece.
Thursday's strong batting wasn't an isolated incident. Bemidji State's victory over Minnesota Duluth was its fourth of the season, effectively eclipsing last year's win total of three. And three of those wins have come in the past two weeks.
The Beavers have tallied wins over Sioux Falls, Winona State and Minnesota Duluth since March 28, winning by a combined score of 26-11.
"We've swung it well the last few weeks, I've been impressed," Ellinghuysen said. "What we've been doing is making really tough outs and hitting with guys in scoring position. Early on in the year we didn't do as good (of a) job at that, we were leaving a lot of guys on. It seems like the last two, three weeks we've been cashing in with runners in scoring position."
Those wins have provided a confidence boost for a team still gathering some chemistry and experience.
"I think now the guys finally have an idea of what it looks like to win, what it looks like to be successful," Ellinghuysen said. "Everybody has kind of got their feet underneath them, that now it's starting to click. We added some pieces this year, some new pieces from last year and kind of just now gelling together, ...
