The University of North Dakota men’s baseball team continued action on its 2013 campaign with a trip east for a four game series with the New York Institute of Technology.

North Dakota kicked off its road trip with a 5-0 victory over NYIT Friday night before losing a 2-1 extra inning duel Saturday morning and winning 16-1 Saturday afternoon.

Sunday afternoon, the Bears salvaged a split in the finale of the series after a six-run inning propelled the team to a 12-5 win.

“We put ourselves in a big hole early and were never able to recover from it,” UND coach Jeff Dodson said. “We settled down a little bit on the mound, but never did make the adjustments at the plate and didn’t get any big two-out hits.”

North Dakota tied the score at the top of the second while the second half yielded six runs by the Bears to move ahead to a 7-1 advantage.

After scoring two in the third, NYIT answered back to score runs and claim a 12-3 advantage. UND scored two additional runs, but they weren’t enough for a victory.

With the weekend’s action, UND improved to 4-8 in the Great West Conference (13-17-1 overall).

On Friday, UND starter Andrew Thome stole the show as he blanked the Bears through a complete game shutout to give North Dakota the series opener win.

“Thome was the story today,” UND head coach Jeff Dodson said. “We scored five in the second inning to get him the lead and it was good to get our first win in the opener of a conference series.”

On the mound, Thome scattered five hits through nine innings pitched while striking out four and yielding only two walks. With the huge win, Thome improved to 3-5 on the season and lowered his ERA to 4.14.

North Dakota managed its five runs in the second inning off of just seven hits in the game as UND’s bats fell quiet after the early game offensive outburst. Matt Wehrli went 2-4 to snatch the only multi-hit performance of the afternoon for UND while Jeff Campbell picked up two of UND’s five RBIs in the game. Kris Kwak, Tyler Follis and Jacob Threlkeld each picked up an RBI a piece to finish off North Dakota’s offensive output against the Bears.

NYIT struck back the next morning with a 2-1 nail-biting win over the Green and White. Tyler Ruemmele went the distance for UND off the hill despite taking the loss after he pitched seven complete innings while yielding just five hits and striking out six. With the disappointing loss, Ruemmele fell to 1-4 on the season.

North Dakota’s only offense in the game came in the first inning off the bat of Taylor Peterson, who knocked in UND’s lone RBI of the game. Following the first inning, the Green and White would score no more runs while the Bears pushed across a run of their own in the fourth. With the score tied after seven and neither pitcher blinking, NYIT scratched a run off Ruemmele in its half of the eighth and sent the Bears home happy in the second game of the series.

Saturday afternoon, North Dakota exacted its revenge for the morning’s heartbreak in the form of a 16-1 offensive shelling of NYIT. Pitching and offense were firing on all levels as the Green and White picked up their fourth conference win of the season.

Alex Twenge ensured that the Bears’ offense would remain silent all afternoon as he held NYIT to just one run over seven innings pitched while allowing just six hits and one walk and striking out eight. The win helped Twenge improve to 4-1 as a pitcher on the season.

North Dakota picked up offensive contributions from all over the lineup as it peppered the Bears for eight runs in the middle innings before exploding for another seven runs in the ninth inning.

Taylor Peterson led the charge for UND after he went 2-4 with five RBIs, including a home run. Patrick Vandoorne led the team in hits on the afternoon after going 3-5, while five other UND starters had multi hit performances.

With weather improving in Grand Forks, UND will look to begin its first home stand on May 3rd against Texas-Pan American in a four game weekend series.

Butz can be reached at [email protected]