Jacks battle Bison for tourney berth

Thursday, May 19

Fargo, N.D.

6:30 PM

South Dakota State University

North Dakota State

Photo by: Inertia Sports Media/Dave Eggen

5/18/2016 3:03:00 PM | Baseball

For the South Dakota State University baseball team, the mission is simple as the Jackrabbits prepare for the final league series of the season — win one game at North Dakota State and return to the Summit League Baseball Championship.
Action for the three-game series begins at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Newman Outdoor Field in Fargo, North Dakota. Friday's contest also is slated for 6:30 p.m., with the series finale set for 1 p.m. Saturday. Radio coverage of all three games will be available locally on KJJQ?910 AM, with Tyler Merriam calling the play-by-play, and through the Jackrabbits All-Access media portal at GoJacks.com. The pre-game show begins 15 minutes prior to scheduled first pitch each day.
The Jackrabbits, 20-31 overall and 12-15 in The Summit League, enter the final weekend of the regular season in sole possession of third place. SDSU, which would be either the third or fourth seed, leads Fort Wayne and Western Illinois by one game and holds a two-game lead over NDSU. The Jackrabbits hold a season-series tiebreaker over Fort Wayne, 4-2, but Western Illinois has the tiebreaker, 4-2, over the Jackrabbits.
The top four teams will advance to next week's Summit League Baseball Championship in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
NDSU enters the week 27-24 overall and 10-17 in The Summit League. SDSU swept a three-game home series from the Bison April 15-17 at Erv Huether Field. The Jackrabbits outscored NDSU, 27-12, in the three games and hit eight home runs.

THE SERIES: Thursday's game will mark the 170th meeting on the baseball diamond between SDSU and Bison. In the series that dates back to 1956, the Jackrabbits hold a 110-59 lead.
Since the two programs joined The Summit League at the start of the 2008 season, the Jackrabbits hold a 22-17 edge in league games and have won eight of nine matchups over the last two seasons. SDSU also has won four of the five games played between the two programs at the Summit League Baseball Championship.

SHORT HOPS: Following are some brief notes regarding the Jackrabbit baseball team heading into this weekend's series:
• Luke Ringhofer has reached base safely in 43 consecutive games, which is now the second-longest streak by a Jackrabbit in the Division I era. Ringhofer, who has reached base in 49 of 51 games this season, trails Zach Coppola's record streak of 45 games set last year.
• Ringhofer has a season on-base percentage of .480 and has walked 37 times against only 15 strikeouts this season. In his two seasons, Ringhofer has drawn 71 bases on balls against 27 strikeouts.
• Matt Johnson's grand slam in the ninth inning of SDSU's 15-3 victory at Omaha on April 23 marked the first grand slam by a Jackrabbit since Jake Ratz connected against Alabama A&M on Feb. 21, 2014.
• Matt Johnson tied the SDSU record for longest hitting streak in the Division I era at 19 games, matching Tyson Fisher's streak in 2005. Johnson wound up batting .400 (28-for-70) with five home runs and 24 runs batted in during his streak, which began on March 29 and ended April 30.
• Four other Jackrabbits have strung together hitting streaks of at least 10 games this season: Luke Ringhofer (13), Phil Velez (10), Jesse Munsterman (10) and Cody Sharrow (10).
• Jesse Munsterman and Matt Johnson hit back-to-back home runs in the eighth inning of the May 13 game against Oral Roberts. Earlier this season, Luke Ringhofer and Newt Johnson hit back-to-back home runs in the first inning of the March 19 game at Oral Roberts.
• Newt Johnson (Feb. 27 vs. Virginia Commonwealth), Paul Jacobson (April 15 vs. North Dakota State) and Matt Johnson (April 16 vs. North Dakota State ) all have two-home run games this season.
• Reliever Chris Halbur has not allowed a run — earned or unearned — in 10 of his last 11 appearances. Halbur has a 1.45 ERA in 18 2/3 innings pitched since March 20, allowing only three runs in a two-inning appearance May 8 against Fort Wayne.
• The Jackrabbits defeated Minnesota, 7-6 in 10 innings, on May 17 to close out the home season. It was SDSU's sixth consecutive win over the Golden Gophers on South Dakota soil, dating back to a 2008 victory in Sioux Falls.

PRESEASON POLL: The South Dakota State University baseball team was picked to finish third in the Summit League standings during the 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).
Oral Roberts 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 in 2016, Jackrabbit pitcher Andrew Clemen has into the SDSU career top 10 for appearances this season.
A senior from Des Moines, Iowa, Clemen has made 64 appearances — 50 of which have been out of the bullpen — in his Jackrabbit career. With his start May 13 against Oral Roberts, Clemen moved into a tie for 10th place in career appearances with Caleb Thielbar (64 appearances from 2006-09) and Mike Robinson (2007-10).
Clemen also stands ninth on the SDSU career charts for strikeouts per nine innings at 8.55, striking out 147 batters in 154 2/3 career innings. Clemen recorded a career-high eight strikeouts in his March 25 start at Western Illinois. He recorded the only complete game by a Jackrabbit pitcher so far this season, striking out four in a losing effort April 22 at Omaha.
The SDSU record for strikeouts per nine innings, 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.
With 147 career strikeouts, Clemen could make a run to move into the SDSU all-time top 10 for strikeouts. Billy McMacken (1987-90) currently holds the 10th spot with 156 career K's.

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 over which he did not give up a run during a stretch of four consecutive appearances in which he earned the win. Over his 11 relief outings, Busch has posted a 1.76 earned run average (9 ER?in 46.0 IP) and has struck out 50.
Busch returned to the starting rotation May 14 against Oral Roberts, pitching six innings and striking out five in a losing effort, which snapped his streak of seven consecutive winning decisions. That streak matched Blake Treinen (2010) and Caleb Thielbar (2007) for the longest individual winning streak by a Jackrabbit pitcher in the Division I era.
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 JOINS TOP 10s: Senior outfielder Paul Jacobson has moved into several Jackrabbit career top 10s in recent weeks.
A Dakota Dunes native, Jacobson has played in 209 career games, including 190 starts, to rank third in the Jackrabbit annals. 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 51 games this season.
Eric Cain holds the Jackrabbit record of 218 games played from 2009-12.
With a team- and career-best 20 stolen bases so far this season, Jacobson has upped his career total to 44, putting him in a tied for sixth place on the Jackrabbit career charts with Darrell Bren (1988-89) and Jon Crow (1989-92). Jacobson stole 10 bases in both 2013 and 2015, and added four steals as a sophomore in 2014.
Jacobson also ranks fourth for career at-bats (727) and eighth in doubles (47). His 15 doubles so far this season lead the team and tie a career high.
In addition, Jacobson enters the weekend with 199 hits, one away from becoming the 17th player in program history to record 200 career hits.

100-RBI CLUB: Two Jackrabbits reached a career milestone with their 100th career run batted in over the past week.
With three runs batted in during the May 11 game at North Dakota, first baseman Matt Johnson joined Jackrabbits' 100-RBI?club.
A junior from Ankeny, Iowa, Johnson enters the weekend with 105 career runs batted in. He has tallied a team- and career-best 47 RBI so far this season and leads the team with eight home runs.
Paul Jacobson, who has hnit seven home runs this season, recorded his 100th career RBI on a second-inning sacrifice fly in the May 17 win over nationally ranked Minnesota. A four-year starter in the outfield, Jacobson has driven in a career-best 34 runs so far during the 2016 campaign.

SCHNEIDER NAMED TO ACADEMIC TEAM: South Dakota State University infielder Anthony Schneider was named earlier this month to the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Academic All-District 6 Baseball Team.
A sophomore from Altoona, Iowa, Schneider was selected to the 12-member team with a 3.91 grade-point average while majoring in biology and pre-medicine. On the field, Schneider enters this weekend's Summit League series against Oral Roberts with a .276 batting average, three home runs and 21 runs batted in. He has started 36 of the team's 47 games and ranks second on the team with 12 stolen bases.
Schneider will advance to the national ballot for Academic All-America consideration later this month. Selections to the Academic All-District 6 Baseball Team were based upon a vote of sports information directors in Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Candidates must be at least a sophomore in athletic and academic standing, a starter or key reserve on his team and carry at least a 3.3 GPA.

PLAYERS OF THE WEEK: South Dakota State has had a player honored as a Summit League player of the week three 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.
Outfielder Paul Jacobson earned Summit honors on April 25. A senior from Dakota Dunes, Jacobson batted .500 (8-for-16) in four games against Mayville State and Omaha, leading the Jackrabbits to a 2-2 record. Jacobson hit safely in all four games and tallied three multi-hit games. He opened the week with a two-hit game in an April 20 win over Mayville State. In the second game of a weekend series at Omaha on April 23, Jacobson went 3-for-4 with a home run and two doubles, adding two runs batted in and three runs scored as SDSU defeated the Mavericks, 15-3.
He finished the Omaha series with a two-hit, two-RBI game on April 24.
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 two 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 134-140-1 record and qualified for the Summit League postseason tournament each of the last three seasons.
Schrage enters the weekend with a 730-804-2 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 has previously found success in building programs at the mid-major level, including a four-year stint at Evansville (Ind.) from 2003-06, during which he guided the Purple Aces to a 130-108 record. Evansville improved its win total each of his four years, from 24 in 2003 to 43 in 2006. Schrage earned Missouri Valley Conference Coach of the Year honors for the third time in 2006 as Evansville won both the regular season and tournament conference titles, earning a berth in the NCAA Tournament. The Purple Aces advanced all the way to the finals of the Charlottesville Regional, knocking off host Virginia before falling to South Carolina in the championship.

JACKS IN THE PROS: Last month, Layne Somsen became the third former South Dakota State pitcher in four seasons to be called up to the Major Leagues.
Somsen was promoted by the Cincinnati Reds after steadily working his way up the minor league system since being selected in the 22nd round of the 2013 MLB Draft. The Yankton native made his Major League debut May 14 at Philadelphia, pitching one scoreless inning.
Previously, Somsen made 83 appearances over parts of four seasons in the Reds organization, compiling a 9-5 record with a 2.51 earned run average. He also earned four saves while striking out 177 batters in 176 career innings pitched. At Triple-A Louisville (Ky.) this season, Somsen made eight appearances with a 1.29 ERA and 15 strikeouts in 14 innings.
Right-handed pitcher Blake Treinen is once again the only former Jackrabbit currently on a Major League roster. A member of Jackrabbit teams in 2010 and 2011, Treinen has pitched for the Washington Nationals for three seasons (2014-16) and has a 3-1 record with a 3.94 ERA in 2016, including earning the victory on Opening Day. Treinen made 60 appearances for the Nationals during the 2015 season, posting a 2-5 record and 3.86 ERA.
Two other former Jackrabbits are currently in the minor leagues.
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, where he is 2-0 on the young season with a 3.86 ERA and 17 strikeouts in 14 innings. 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 leading the Class A Lakewood (N.J.) BlueClaws with a .386 batting average, 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 36 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: Pending the outcome of this weekend's series at North Dakota State, the Jackrabbits could be one of the four teams to compete in the 2016 Summit League Baseball Championship May 25-28 at J.L. Johnson Stadium in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The schedule for the double-elimination tournament is as follows:
Wednesday, May 25
• Game 1 (teams to be determined), noon
• Game 2 (teams to be determined), 6 p.m.
Thursday, May 26
• Game 3 – Loser Game 1 vs. Loser Game 2, noon
• Game 4 – Winner Game 1 vs. Loser Game 2, 6 p.m.
Friday, May 27
• Game 5 – Winner Game 3 vs. Loser Game 4, 6 p.m.
Saturday, May 28
• Game 6 – Winner Game 4 vs. Winner Game 5, 1 p.m.
• Game 7 (if neccessary; 30 minutes after the end of Game 6