COMPLETE RELEASE: Independent Championship

Independent Championships
For the final time, the Northern Colorado baseball team will play in the Division I Independent Championships. This season, only three teams are competing as Houston Baptist and Texas-Pan American will also compete. Next year, all three teams will be in the Great West Conference. This is the second straight year Texas-Pan American has served as hosts of the tournament and last season, the Bears tied for the title with a 3-1 record.

Finishing As You Started
Northern Colorado swept its first home series of the season, winning all four games against Montana State-Billings, and they finished the home portion of the 2009 schedule the same way, winning all four games against Texas-Pan American. The Bears won 7-4, 28-22, 19-6 (7) and 25-18, breaking several school records on the way.

Honored
For the second time this season, a Northern Colorado baseball player has been honored by the Great West Conference for their efforts on the field. Senior designated hitter Kevin Sandberg was named the Player of the Week on Tuesday. Sandberg helped lead the Bears to a four-game series sweep over Texas-Pan American in the final home series of the year. He hit .500 with 17 RBI in the four games, including a three home run contest in the finale where he fell one RBI short of the school record with nine. His three round-trippers ties a school record, while it brought his season total to 20, which knots the single-season record of Dave Keller's from 1982. Sandberg also had an on-base percentage of .545 and a slugging percentage of 1.350 for the week.

Series History
Northern Colorado is 10-4 all-time against Texas-Pan American after sweeping the Broncs in a four-game series last week. The Bears are 1-4 against Houston Baptist. The two teams met for the first time last season at the Independent Championship with the Bears winning 7-2. Earlier this year, the Huskies swept the four game set in Houston.

Scouting Texas-Pan American
Texas-Pan American sports a record of 11-40 on the season after being swept by the Bears last week. Despite losing all four games, the Broncs hit .427 against Bears pitching, led by Ryan Vest who hit .722 with a pair of doubles and .700 on base percentage. The team ERA against NC is 22.20. Seth Brevard pitched two scoreless innings, while Scott Wingo threw 7.0 with a 9.00 ERA. For the season, Abraham Garcia leads the team with a .380 batting average, while Jordan Rutenbar has a team-best seven home runs. Wingo has the clubs best ERA at 5.94. The Broncs are hitting .291 on the season with an ERA of 9.63.

Scouting Houston Baptist
The Huskies are 10-37 on the season with a 4-32 record away from home. In the four game set in Houston, HBU hit .383 with a team ERA of 4.24 while the Bears hit .235 with a 9.49 ERA. Of the players to see action in all four games, David Mark led the team with a .545 batting average, going 6-for-11 with one home run. On the mound, three threw a scoreless frame, while Hunter Scott had a 3.00 ERA over six innings of work. For the season, Andrew Taccolini leads the team with a .318 mark and seven roundtrippers. Keith Brunson has a 4.92 ERA in 53 innings to lead the club on the hill.

Seeing The Ball
Junior catcher Seth Budde tied the NCAA record for walks in a game when he walked six times in the second game against Texas-Pan American. Budde ties 10 other Division I players with his record, the most recent being Josh Holliday from Oklahoma State against Oral Roberts on May 29, 1999, a gap of almost exactly 10 years. Budde is now tied for third on the team with 22 base on balls and he has started in just 32 of the team's 49 games.

Double Trouble
Northern Colorado started the third game of the series against Texas-Pan American with four straight doubles. After a single, the Bears added their fifth double of the inning and ended the game with 10, while the Broncs tallied four for 14 in the game. The five doubles in an inning ties for the fifth most in NCAA history, tying six other teams with the most recent bein Clemson vs Coastal Carolina on March 29, 2005. The NCAA single inning record is eight by LSU vs Georgia Tech on May 26, 1996, while three teams have tied with six. The 10 doubles in a game by one team ties for the 14th most in NCAA Division I history, while the 14 combined doubles ties for the fifth most ever.

Made To Be Broken
In the first game of the doubleheader against Texas-Pan American, the two teams combined for 50 runs and 44 RBI, breaking the Northern Colorado records set earlier this season against Utah Valley of 44 runs and 40 RBI. The 50 combined runs is believed to be the most scored in a Division I game this season.

Offensive Firepower
Northern Colorado has scored 19 or more runs in four of its last five games and has topped the 20-run plateau four times in 2009. It is the first time the Bears have scored 20 runs in four games since the 1963 season and the 14th time they have done so multiple times in the same year.

Hitting The Long Ball
Senior Kevin Sandberg tied the school record with three home runs in his final home game at Jackson Field, including his first career grand slam to lift the Bears to a 25-18 victory. Sandberg now has 20 home runs on the year, tying Dave Keller (1982) for the single season record. He now ranks 12th in NCAA Division I with 0.42 round-trippers per game and is 16th with his total of 20.

Fence Clearing
Northern Colorado has hit at least two home runs in its last five games and in seven of the last eight, including five in two of those last five contests. The Bears have 74 home runs on the season, just three shy of the school's single season record of 77 from the 1981 season.

Etching Their Name
Senior Kevin Sandberg is now tied for eighth on the single season RBI chart with 60. It is the most at NC since Patrick Perry set the record in 2004 with 74. He also has five saves on the year, which ties for fourth on the single-season charts and he has tied the record with 20 home runs. Fellow senior Andy Mees now ranks eighth on the charts with 39 walks this year and both Sandberg and freshman Joe Willman are tied for 15th with 17 pitching appearances.

Crudo Joins The Club
Freshman Tony Crudo became the 17th player to hit a home run for Northern Colorado this season out of 18 with at bats. Crudo hit three in the final home series, including back-to-back jacks in the home finale. Freshman Adam Hilker is the only player on the team to not have left the yard this season, but he does lead the club with seven stolen bases.

Sandberg Does It Again
Senior Kevin Sandberg broke both the career hit and RBI records in the final series at home against Texas-Pan American. He now has 235 hits and 183 RBI. He also owns the records for at bats (738), doubles (55), total bases (425) and is second in home runs (43) and tied for fourth with 157 runs scored and 101 walks. In pitching, he is tied for seventh all-time with five career saves.

Home Run Power
For the first time since 2004, Northern Colorado has three players with double digits in home runs as senior Kevin Sandberg leads the team with 20, senior Erik Hegstad has 11 and senior Andy Mees has 10. In 2004, Patrick Perry (13), John Ray (12) and Trevor Allen (11) all hit more than 10 round-trippers.

Now Appearing
Junior right-handed pitcher Forbes Scott has appeared in 22 games this season, tying for the third most in school history. The record in a single year for appearances on the mound is 26 by Sean Peery last year. Scott has thrown 36.1 innings with an ERA of 8.17 and a record of 2-1. Senior Kevin Sandberg and freshman Joe Willman are also tied for 15th on the list with 17 appearances this year.

Home Sweet Home Run
Senior Erik Hegstad managed what no other Northern Colorado player has done in at least the last 15 years. Hegstad hit a home run in five straight contests: the finale at UNLV, both games against Air Force and the first two games at Dallas Baptist. In researching the Bears' history, John Ray hit one in four straight in 2004, while Brian Pickel also hit one four games in a row in 2001.

Back To Back
Four times this season, a pair of Bears have hit back-to-back home runs in a game. The tandem of Andy Mees and Kevin Sandberg have hit back-to-back jacks twice, at Utah Valley on March 7 in the third inning, then repeated the feat at Kansas in the ninth inning on March 31. At Dallas Baptist on April 24 with two outs, Erik Hegstad hit a solo home run, followed by a shot by Sandberg. Against Air Force on April 28, Hegstad again hit a solo home run with two outs, followed by a ball over the left center wall by junior Seth Budde.

Spreading The Wealth
Northern Colorado continues to rank among the Division I leaders in home runs (through May 17), hitting 74, to rank 26th with 1.51 per game. The total of 74 also ranks NC 33rd. The Bears also rank 33rd in triples per game (0.37) and are 36th in total triples with 18. With the high scoring affairs last week, the Bears improved to 34th in the nation in slugging percentage at .520 and are 41st in Division I in scoring averaging 8.2 runs per game.

Milestone Victory
The game against Southern Miss marked head coach Kevin Smallcomb's 150th victory at Northern Colorado. He ranks fourth in victories among NC coaches with 159, winning one North Central Championship and at least a share of three Division I Independent Titles in his six seasons. Pete Butler is the winningest coach in school history with a record of 416-152-2 from 1941 to 1967.

Double Duty
For the first time since April 2, 2003, a pitcher in the starting role hit a home run in the same game. Senior Kevin Sandberg hit a three-run home run in the third inning while pitching in the finale against New Mexico. Phil Delich was the last to do so, hitting a two-run home run against Metro State in 2003. Sandberg hit another home run in his next start at Utah Valley.

Finding A Home
On January 31, 2009 it was announced Northern Colorado and NYIT would join the Great West Conference in the sport of baseball for the 2009-10 academic year. The 2010 conference season will begin the weekend of April 9-11, and competing each weekend through May 20-22, culminating with the first Great West Championship, May 26-29 at UTPA. Last season, the Bears posted a 7-3 record against teams in the Great West Conference.