UMD Baseball Team Shatters Pre-Season Expectations with First NSIC Tournament Berth Since 2017

UMD will open up against Minnesota State Mankato. First pitch on Wednesday is set for 6:30 p.m.

DULUTH, Minn. – The NSIC pre-season polls had the UMD baseball team ranked 13th out of 14 going into the 2022 season. Those expectations are a distant memory as the Bulldogs would end up finishing sixth in the conference.

We wrote that on the whiteboard in the locker room, kind of like a motivation kind of thing because we knew we didn’t deserve to be there and we kind of just had to prove it to everyone. We would talk about it as the season went on, just kind of like remember they had us at 13th and like this team was ranked ahead of us. Let’s go and beat them and show them that we’re not supposed to be 12th and we did a good job of that,” said senior Tim Pokornowski.

“I told the guys after our last regular season game let’s that make sure that we don’t let up, that we’ve reached the goal, let’s put the pedal to the metal and just have a ton of fun in the conference tournament, give ourselves every opportunity to get a postseason birth, based on NCAA regional if we win that conference tournament,” head coach Bob Rients said.

The Bulldogs ended their season winning eight of their last 12 games, pushing them into the NSIC tournament for the first time since 2017.

“Our pitching’s just been a lot better, keeping us in ball games. Our bats got hot and just we haven’t been out of any game, no matter the score. We’ve stuck to it. It means a lot. No one on our team has ever been there before so it’s really exciting for all of us to get back there and see what we can do,” junior Alex Wattermann said.

“I think our lineup and our pitching staff is more upperclassmen than not. I mean, we’ve had a lot of key contributions from younger guys, but that experience definitely plays true and the confidence level coming from the older guys, I think it’s for rubbing off on some of the younger guys,” said senior Tosten Mann.

UMD will open up against Minnesota State Mankato. First pitch on Wednesday is set for 6:30 p.m.