Jacks to play at Minnesota, Creighton

Tuesday, April 12

Minneapolis, Minn.

3:00 PM

South Dakota State University

Minnesota

Photo by: Inertia Sports Media/Dave Eggen

4/12/2016 9:45:00 AM | Baseball

The South Dakota State University baseball team opens a busy week by playing a pair of mid-week road games against major conference opponents.
The Jackrabbits, 10-20 overall, begin the week's worth of action Tuesday with a game at Minnesota. First pitch is set for 3 p.m. at Siebert Field on the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis.The Golden Gophers have an 18-10 overall record, including a 4-1 mark in the Big Ten Conference, after winning both games of an abbreviated series at Michigan over the weekend.
Wednesday, the Jackrabbits move on to Omaha, Nebraska, for a meeting with Creighton. Start time is 6:30 p.m. at TD?Ameritrade Park. The Bluejays, 20-7 overall and 2-1 in the Big East Conference, are scheduled to host Nebraska Tuesday night
Radio coverage for both Jackrabbit games will be on Brookings-based KJJQ 910 AM, with Tyler Merriam calling the play-by-play, as well as through the Jackrabbits All-Access media portal at GoJacks.com.

THE SERIES: Tuesday's matchup against Minnesota will mark the 41st meeting on the baseball diamond between the Jackrabbits and Golden Gophers, a series that dates back to 1947.
Minnesota leads the all-time series, 29-11, including a 3-2 victory at Siebert Field on April 22, 2015, in the lone meeting between the two teams last season. SDSU and Minnesota have played every season since 2004, with the exception of the 2013 campaign, with the Jackrabbits winning six of the last eight meetings dating back to the start of the 2010 season.
Wednesday's game at Creighton will be the 31st meeting between the Jackrabbits and Bluejays since the series began in 1958. Creighton leads the all-time series, 22-8, after posting two wins over SDSU last season. The Bluejays won a 4-2 decision at TD?Ameritrade Park on March 17, 2015, followed by an 8-5 victory on April 29 in a game played in Sioux City, Iowa.
Creighton has won the last six meetings, with the last Jackrabbit victory coming during the 2012 season.

SHORT HOPS: Following are a few notes heading into this week's games at Minnesota and Creighon:
• The Jackrabbits played their first Summit League home games of the season April 9-10, winning one of three games against Omaha.
• Jesse Munsterman and Cody Sharrow each have active 10-game hitting streaks. Munsterman's streak began with a five-hit effort at Western Illinois on March 26 and he is hitting .429 (18-for-42) with 13 of his 14 runs batted in for the season during that span.
Sharrow, meanwhile, is batting .417 (15-for-36) during his streak after notching two hits in each of the three weekend games against Omaha.
• Four different Jackrabbit players have had a hitting streak of at least 10 games so far this season. Luke Ringhofer had a 13-game hitting streak from March 9 through April 3, while Phil Velez had his 10-game hitting streak end in the second game of the April 9 doubleheader versus Omaha.
• Ringhofer and Newt Johnson hit back-to-back home runs in the first inning of the March 19 game at Oral Roberts, becoming the first Jackrabbit tandem to hit consecutive round-trippers since Matt Johnson and Newt Johnson in a home game against North Dakota State on April 12, 2015.
• Ringhofer and Newt Johnson share the team lead with three home runs.
• Munsterman's home run in the second game of the April 9 doubleheader against Omaha ended a string of seven games in which the Jackrabbits did not hit a home run.
• Sophomore Greg Casper earned saves in a pair of long relief outings last week. Casper held North Dakota scoreless over the final 2 2/3 innings on April 6, then struck out six Omaha batters in a three-inning save April 10.
• Paul Jacobson is a perfect 13-for-13 on stolen-base attempts this season. As a team, the Jackrabbits have been successful on 33-of-36 stolen-base attempts in 2016. SDSU has swiped a base on each of its last 18 attempts dating back to a March 13 game at Northern Colorado.

PRESEASON POLL: The South Dakota State University baseball team has been picked to finish third in the Summit League standings during the upcoming 2016 season, according to a poll among the league's six head coaches that was released Feb. 11.
The Jackrabbits received one first-place vote and tallied a total of 17 points for their third-place showing in the preseason poll. Defending regular season and tournament champion Oral Roberts received the other five first-place votes to be tabbed as the favorite with 25 points. Tournament runner-up Fort Wayne was second with 19 points.
Rounding out the poll were Omaha (15), North Dakota State (8) and Western Illinois (6).
The 30-game Summit League schedule kicks off March 18, when the Jackrabbits open a three-game series at Oral Roberts. ORU will host the four-team Summit League Baseball Championship May 25-28 at J.L. Johnson Stadium in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

CLEMEN CLIMBS THE CHARTS: Although he has moved into a starting role this season, Jackrabbit pitcher Andrew Clemen could still move into the SDSU career top 10 for appearances in 2016.
A senior from Des Moines, Iowa, Clemen has made 59 appearances — 50 of which have been out of the bullpen — in his Jackrabbit career. He needs to pitch in five more games during the 2016 campaign to move into the top 10.
Clemen also stands eighth on the SDSU career charts for strikeouts per nine innings at 8.95, striking out 127 batters in 127 2/3 career innings. Clemen recorded a career-high eight strikeouts in his March 25 start at Western Illinois and has fanned at least five batters in six of his last seven starts.
The SDSU record, with a minimum of 60 innings pitched, is 11.40 by Pete Torgerson
during his lone season in a Jackrabbit uniform in 1989. Dick Barnes ranks second with an average of 9.99 strikeouts per nine innings from 1964-66, with Bob Ehrke (1952-54) third at 9.70 K's per nine innings.
During the 2015 season, Clemen posted the fifth-highest single-season ratio in school history with an average of 10.76 strikeouts per nine innings, fanning 47 batters in 39 1/3 innings.

BUSCH BLANKING OPPONENTS: Since moving to the bullpen at the beginning of March, Landon Busch has been lights out against the opposition.
A junior left-hander, Busch had a string of 14 consecutive innings in which he did not give up a run during a four-game personal winning streak. Over his six relief appearances, Busch has posted a 2.22 earned run average and has struck out 28 batters in 24 1/3 innings.
A Brookings native, Busch is in his first season pitching for the Jackrabbits. He spent his first two seasons (2013-14) at Kansas State before transferring to SDSU in the fall of 2014. He sat out the 2015 campaign due to NCAA?transfer rules.

JACOBSON NEARS TOP 10: Senior outfielder Paul Jacobson is in line to move into the SDSU career top 10 for games played midway through the 2016 season.
A Dakota Dunes native, Jacobson enters the weekend having played in 188 career games, including 169 starts, putting him two games away from sliding into the 10th spot. Jacobson, who has moved to right field this season after serving as the team's primary left fielder the previous three seasons, is the lone Jackrabbit to start all 30 games this season.
Jacobson's uncle, Pat Schmidt, ranks in a tie for seventh in games played by a Jackrabbit with 193 from 1992-95. Eric Cain holds the Jackrabbit record of 218 games played from 2009-12.

PLAYERS OF THE WEEK: South Dakota State has had a player honored as a Summit League player of the week two times during the 2016 season.
Catcher Luke Ringhofer was honored March 14 as co-Summit League Player of the Week in helping lead the Jackrabbits to a pair of victories at Northern Colorado.
A sophomore from Cottage Grove, Minnesota, Ringhofer hit safely in four of the five games in which he had an official at-bat, including a pair of multi-hit games against Northern Colorado as the Jackrabbits claimed the three-game series. For the week, he batted .412 (7-for-17) with a home run, four runs batted in and six runs scored. He also walked six times.
Junior pitcher Landon Busch was named Summit League Pitcher of the Week on March 21 for his efforts in the Jackrabbits' series-opening win at Oral Roberts.
A junior from Brookings, Busch earned the win after tossing three shutout innings March 18 as the Jackrabbits rallied for a 3-2, 12-inning victory. Busch finished his outing with five strikeouts, including striking out the side in the bottom of the 12th to preserve the win.

COACH SCHRAGE: Veteran baseball coach Dave Schrage (pronounced Schrag) enters his 28th season as a collegiate head coach — and fifth at South Dakota State University — during the 2016 season. Schrage was hired to take over the reins of the Jackrabbit baseball program on Aug. 8, 2011.
After posting an 18-33-1 record in his first season at South Dakota State, including a
7-14 mark in The Summit League, Schrage directed a big turnaround in 2013, leading SDSU its first-ever appearance in the NCAA?Tournament at the Division I level. The Jackrabbits, who ended the season with a 35-24 overall record, won four consecutive games to claim their inaugural Summit League postseason tournament title and advance to the Eugene Regional of the NCAA Tournament, where they were edged in a pair of one-run games.
SDSU again earned the top seed for the Summit League Baseball Championship during the 2014 season, finishing with an 11-11 mark in a tightly contested league race. Overall, the Jackrabbits finished with a 28-29 overall record. Six Jackrabbit players earned all-Summit League accolades.
The Jackrabbits again contended for a Summit League title during the 2015 season, posting an overall record of 33-23 and a second-place mark of 18-11 in league play. SDSU put together win streaks of six and eight games midway through the season to move into the upper division of The Summit League.
Under Schrage's leadership, the Jackrabbits have compiled a 124-129-1 record and have qualified for the Summit League postseason tournament each of the last three seasons.
Schrage enters the week with a 720-793-2 career mark. He recorded his 600th career victory in his first season at SDSU, and tallied career win No. 700, when the Jackrabbits defeated Omaha, 5-1, on April 17, 2015, at Erv Huether Field. Schrage's 100th win at the helm of the SDSU program came on April 11, 2015, in a 5-4 home win over North Dakota State.
In 27-plus seasons as a collegiate head coach, he has averaged more than 25 victories per season, including seven campaigns with 32 or more wins. He has coached players who have earned all-conference honors 75 times and 42 of his former student-athletes have gone on to play professionally, including 2015 draft picks Zach Coppola (Philadelphia Phillies) and Adam Bray (Los Angeles Dodgers).
Prior to South Dakota State, Schrage was head coach at Notre Dame for four seasons, leading the Fighting Irish to a 119-104-1 record from 2007-10. After posting a .500 record (28-28) his first season in South Bend, Schrage put Notre Dame back in contention for postseason play with a 33-21-1 record in 2008 and a 36-23 mark in 2009. The Fighting Irish led the BIG EAST Conference in fielding in both 2008 and 2009, while consistently ranking at or near the top in batting, on-base percentage and earned run average.
Schrage began his collegiate coaching career as a graduate assistant under his predecessor at Notre Dame, Paul Mainieri, at St. Thomas University (Fla.) in 1984. He later returned to his alma mater, Creighton University (Neb.), as an assistant coach for two seasons.
From 1986-87, Schrage coached the Queensland Rams club team in Brisbane, Australia, before returning stateside as he gained his first head coaching job at Waldorf College in Forest City, Iowa. From 1988-90 he led the junior college program to a 61-66 mark.
Schrage then spent nine seasons (1991-99) as head coach at the University of Northern Iowa, where he was named Missouri Valley Conference Coach of the Year in 1995 and 1997. He also served as head coach at Northern Illinois (2000-02) and Evansville (2003-06).
As a collegiate player, Schrage was an all-conference outfielder at Creighton, batting .400 as a junior and .433 his senior season. He also was an Academic All-America honoree during his senior campaign in 1983, and graduated that spring with a bachelor of science degree in finance. Schrage was honored on the MVC's Centennial Celebration baseball team and is the only person in league history to earn all-conference honors and be named MVC Coach of the Year in baseball.

JACKS IN THE PROS: Several former Jackrabbit players are playing professionally this spring.
Right-handed pitcher Blake Treinen is currently the lone Jackrabbit in the Major Leagues. A member of Jackrabbit teams in 2010 and 2011, Treinen has pitched for the Washington Nationals for three seasons (2014-16) and earned an Opening Day victory last week. Treinen made 60 appearances for the Nationals during the 2015 season, posting a 2-5 record and 3.86 ERA.
Three other Jackrabbits began the 2016 season in the minor leagues.
Layne Somsen (2009-13) is on the 40-man roster for the Cincinnati Reds. A Yankton native, Somsen was promoted to Triple-A Louisville late midway through the 2015 season, seeing action both as a starter and out of the bullpen. In three professional seasons since being selected in the 22nd round of the 2013 MLB Draft by the Reds, Somsen has compiled a 9-5 record and 2.57 ERA while averaging nearly a strikeout per inning pitched.
Adam Bray, who was a 33rd round draft choice by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2015, has been assigned to the Class A Great Lakes Loons in Midland, Michigan, to start the 2016
season. Bray made his professional debut with Ogden (Utah) in Rookie ball last summer, going 2-2 with 33 strikeouts and only four walks in eight starts.
Zach Coppola is a Philadelphia Phillies farmhand after being drafted in the 13th round last year. Coppola, who is currently a member of the Class A Lakewood (N.J.) BlueClaws, spent the summer of 2015 at Class A?Williamsport (Pa.), where he batted .271 with 19 steals.
Three other Jackrabbits are slated to pitch in the independent American Association this season. Chris Anderson (2014-15) recently signed with the Winnipeg Goldeyes, while Stephen Bougher (2010-13) is set to return to the Sioux Falls Canaries. Left-hander Caleb Thielbar recently re-signed with the St. Paul Saints. Thielbar pitched for the Minnesota Twins from 2013-15.

THE ROSTER: The 2016 SDSU baseball roster features 36 players from eight different states plus one Canadian province. Of the 37 players, 12 are from South Dakota, 11 are from Minnesota, seven hail from Iowa, while Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Vermont are represented by one player each. In addition, one player is from the Canadian province of British Columbia.
By class, eight are seniors, nine are juniors, 11 are sophomores, three are redshirt freshmen and five are true freshmen.

A?LOOK?AHEAD: The Jackrabbits return to Summit League action by hosting a three-game weekend series against North Dakota State April 15-17 at Erv Huether Field. First pitch Friday is slated for 3 p.m., while games Saturday and Sunday are set for 1 p.m. starts.