WARRENSBURG, Mo. — The Augustana baseball team is moving on, having swept through the Division II Central Region tournament, twice knocking off top-seed and host Central Missouri to advance to the Super Regional.
The Vikings (45-18), defeated Oucahita Baptist 5-3 in their opener, then beat the Mules — ranked 4th in the nation in Division II — 4-2 on Friday and 8-6 on Sunday in the clincher. UCM would've had to beat the Vikings a second time if they'd won that game.
The Vikings will be back at home for the Super Regional, where they'll host conference rival MSU-Mankato, the winner of the second pod of the Central Region, in a best-of-three starting Friday at Ronken Field. The winners of the Super Regional advance to the Division II World Series.
"We just competed," said Vikings coach Tim Huber. "We didn't play awesome, to be honest. We made some mistakes throughout the weekend and again today, but stayed in the game and got some big hits and had our pitchers do the job for us when we needed them to."
Huber said before the regional that for his team to have any chance they needed their top two starters to step up and go deep into their starts. That's exactly what happened, and it set the tone for the Vikings' sweep.
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Seth Miller scattered nine hits in six strong innings in the opener, and Caleb Saari went seven innings allowing just one run in the first win over the Mules, with Adam Diedrich picking up the save in each, his 13th and 14th of the year.
On Sunday the Vikings fell behind 5-2, but answered with a six-run fifth inning, powered by three-run homers from Drey Dirksen and Ragan Pinnow. From there they got 6.2 scoreless innings from the bullpen, with Kai Taylor going 3.1 for the win and Miller coming on to get the last five outs for his first save of the season.
That puts the Vikings two wins away from the World Series, where they were last seen winning the national championship in 2018. The Vikings are in their fifth consecutive NCAA tournament and this marks the second year in a row they've reached the Super Regional. Last year they were swept in two games by Southern Arkansas, blowing late leads in each.
Now they'll get another shot, and against a Mavericks team that has become the Vikings' primary baseball rival. Huber is himself a former Maverick outfielder. Augie swept a three-game series at Mankato in April but lost to them 6-1 in the NSIC tournament.
Game 1 of the Super Regional is set for Friday (time TBA), with Game 2 and the if-necessary Game 3 on Saturday.
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