The North Dakota baseball team is coming off a big weekend on the road against conference opponent, Seattle University.

The Green and White took two of three games from the top-ranked team in the Western Athletic Conference, which advanced North Dakota to a winning record of 8-7 in the WAC standings.

North Dakota, now 14-18 this season, dropped a close one in the first game in Seattle, losing the opening game of the series 4-2 this past Friday. The Redhawks, who came into last weekend with a 11-1 conference record, pulled away from North Dakota in the eighth inning and scored twice in the bottom to make it 4-2.

Even after starting the weekend out with a loss, UND coach Jeff Dodson was still impressed with how his team performed.

“We had a great Friday night ballgame,” he said. “They have a good ball club, and both starting pitcher threw tremendous tonight. I liked how we played tonight. We had some guys make some big plays defensively and Andrew Thome was fabulous on the mound.”

Thome pitched one of his best games for North Dakota in Friday night’s game. The senior right hander had only allowed four hits in the game before coming into the eighth, where North Dakota gave way to Seattle.

The change from Friday to Saturday also brought a change of events in the series between the two teams. Pitching was a major driving force behind a North Dakota win, as the team pulled out a 3-2 victory over the Redhawks on Saturday afternoon.

“Today, pitching was the story,” Dodson said on Saturday. “Pitching was outstanding and we had some big timely hits by Cooper Maas out of the nine-hole, with a couple runs batted in. We executed better today, and defensively we were good today as well.”

Sophomore pitcher Zach Muchkenhirn found himself pitching into the seventh inning, only allowing four hits through six innings pitched and striking out five batters.

Senior Jeff Campbell, who has seven saves for North Dakota this season, came in to finish the game for the Green and White.

Pitching was huge again for North Dakota, but the team also saw more offensive output as it took the series away from the Seattle Redhawks with a 9-2 win on Sunday.

Alex Twenge got the nod for the series-determining game and did not disappoint. The senior threw a complete game and did not allow another run after the third inning.

On the offensive side off the ball, North Dakota poured on 13 hits and had RBIs from Tyler Follis, Jeff Campbell, Daniel Lockhert and Brent Harrison.

“Huge win for us today to get us above .500 in the league,” Dodson said. “To win two of three from the first place team in the league is a huge step for our program at this point in the season.”

With 12 conference games remaining on the year, North Dakota sits in the middle of the WAC standings and in a good spot to make a push for the conference tournament at the end of May.

North Dakota goes on the road Wednesday for an in-state rivalry game against North Dakota State.

Senior Tyler Follis went into the game against rival North Dakota State on Wednesday leading the WAC in hitting with a .422 batting average, which ranks fourth in the NCAA.

North Dakota has had the upper hand on NDSU in past meetings with North Dakota with a 96-68 record against the Bison.

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