The weather is not the only thing heating up campus as the UND baseball team used its momentum from last weekend’s win over CSU Bakersfield, and a little bit of home cooking to achieve something that has never been done.

The Green and White completed their first sweep of a series in their Division I history.

UND was in Bismarck this weekend, after the game was moved form Grand Forks, N.D., to take on Northern Colorado. Though both teams were ready to take the field Friday, the weather had other ideas.

Officials decided the weather was too cold to play, and the game was moved to Saturday for a double header.

Every game had the common theme of good pitching, starting in Game 1.

Andrew Thome started to look like his old self on the mound. Through his first complete game of the season, Thome worked wonders, striking out six batters and only allowing one run.

This was a game that UND never trailed in. Zack Trygstad hit a solo home run in the second inning to put UND up for good. Ryan Reese and Patrick Riewer tacked on two more runs. Even though Northern Colorado tried to get back into the game, it fell short as UND took the game, 3-1.

Game 2 featured the same great pitching, but this time from a couple different faces.

The up and coming freshman Zach Muckenhirn went to work on the Bears pitching 5.2 strong innings by only giving up three hits and no runs.

He also managed to strike out six batters before he was pulled for Tyler Ruemmele. While Ruemmele did let up two runs off five hits, he had a 1-2-3 ninth inning that put the game away with a  3-2 UND victory.

Though the hitters may have been on top of their game Saturday, all that mattered was the end result.

“It doesn’t matter how you win when you get a doubleheader sweep, it’s always a good thing,” UND coach Jeff Dodson said. “We had timely hitting, we had tremendous pitching and brilliant defensive plays. We’ve got to get ready for tomorrow. It’s a huge percentage-points swing if we can come out and take care of business.”

And take care of business they did.

In Game 3, the pressure was on the Green and White to accomplish a feat that has never been done, and their pitching rotation came through yet again.

UND gained its 2-1 lead in the seventh, and then it was up to the men on the mound.

Jeff Campbell had another great game for the team, going 8.1 innings while only allowing one run off of five hits.

Playing the numbers game in the ninth inning, the pitching staff elected to bring in Ellery Bresnahan after Campbell had got the first out of the inning.

After Bresnahan struck out one, Brock Johnson was brought in to finish the game. Johnson got the batter to ground out to third and that was the ball game. North Dakota walked away with a 2-1 advantage.

“I thought our kids really came out and played well today to give us our first conference sweep,” Coach Dodson said. “They came out pretty loose today.”

UND is now 6-3 in the Western Athletic Conference after the weekend sweep and will look to keep adding to its four-game winning streak next weekend.

While a game against Minnesota Crookston was supposed to be held Wednesday in Grand Forks, the game has been postponed to a later date.

The Green and White will go out of conference for a series, when it will face Creighton in Nebraska this weekend.

Alex Stadnik is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. He can be reached at [email protected].