North Dakota baseball is coming off a weekend full of success in Grand Forks.  UND, now 12-16 on the season, swept conference opponent Chicago State, defeating the Cougars in all three matchups played at Kraft Memorial Field this past weekend.

Sunday’s game between the two teams was close until the eighth inning when North Dakota went on to score seven runs, securing a 11-1 victory.

All in the eighth, sophomore Hunter Walsh hit the first home run of his North Dakota career He then ended the game with a two-run walk off double to give North Dakota a run-rule win.

“Coach has been kind of giving me some crap, telling me I’m a bigger guy,” Walsh said with a smile after Sunday’s win over Chicago State. “My numbers have been kind of down this year. He’s been kind of giving me some crap saying I can’t handle the ballpark, so just put a good swing on the ball and let the bat do the work I guess.”

Sunday’s series finale was a big day for sophomores on the North Dakota roster. Sophomore catcher T.J. Pigeon hit his first career home run, a three-run shot to left field that gave North Dakota a 9-1 lead before Walsh ended the game with his double.

“I’ve kind of struggled earlier this year,” Pigeon said. “I just came back off an injury — fractured my hand earlier this year. (This is my) first time back and it’s kind of nice to be productive to the team.”

North Dakota finished Sunday’s game with a total of 16 hits. Walsh, along with senior Tyler Follis both put the ball in play three times for UND.

The three wins on the weekend brought North Dakota up to a 6-6 record in the Western Athletic Conference and also moved the team into the middle of the conference standings.

Walsh mentioned after Sunday’s game how the sweep over Chicago State will give the team confidence when it heads into Seattle next weekend to take on current conference leader Seattle University.

Before traveling to Seattle, North Dakota snapped its four-game win streak on the road on Tuesday, losing 21-7 to South Dakota State.

The Jackrabbits scored 11 runs in the fourth inning of the mid-week non-conference matchup that UND wasn’t able to come back from.

Follis went into Tuesday’s  game with the third-highest batting average at .426 in the NCAA.  The senior went 1-for-2, and walked three times.

North Dakota will be tested this weekend as it will try and snap a ten-game conference win streak that Seattle is holding onto.

Seattle  presents a challenge to UND as it has its opponents’ batting .247 on the season, the second best in conference behind Sacramento State.

Seattle ERA this season is 3.40, which is second behind Sacramento State.

North Dakota will play Friday, Saturday and Sunday this weekend in Seattle, and will look to build off some recent success in conference play.

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