May 16, 2018 – The Concordia-Chicago Cougars 2018 season has been like very few others. But in one respect at least, they will be looking for a repeat of 2017 by winning a regional and advancing to the Division III World Series. This time, the Midwest Regional is in Duluth, MN, and the Cougars are in a six-team regional in which they are the No. 1 seed. They will open regional play on Thursday morning at 11 a.m. taking on No.6 Bethany Lutheran College.

Unlike recent years, the Cougars advanced to the regional via the "at-large" route. The Cougars were looking to be the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference's automatic bid for the sixth consecutive year but were denied by Aurora University in last weekend's conference tournament. However, the team's Midwest ranking (No. 1 for the last three weeks) and the strength of schedule (one of the toughest in the nation) were factors weighed heavily in CUC earning the at-large bid.

As it was, the Cougars nearly earned the automatic bid anyway. After losing the first game to Aurora last Thursday and then seeing all of Friday's games washed out by a steady and chilling rain, the Cougars were looking at a scenario where they would have to win five games in a span of roughly 28 hours. Sure enough, CUC embraced the challenge. They won the first three games, eliminating three of the teams along the way, and then rallied to beat Aurora 5-2 in 11 innings to force an "if necessary" game. In that final game, Mitch Wilson's two-out ninth-inning triple toed the game 2-2 and sent the game into extra innings.
Aurora scored three in the 13^th inning and then withstood a CUC rally before the Cougars came up a run short in falling 5-4. However, their disappointment was only brief, as they found out Monday morning that they were headed to Duluth to compete in their seventh straight regional.

For Bethany Lutheran, they took a different route in getting to the regional. The Vikings (23-10) defeated the College of St. Scholastica twice in the championship, breaking a 20-year run that the Saints had as champions of the UMAC. The irony is that this was the first year that St. Scholastica was hosting the regional at their home field of Frank Wade Municipal Stadium.

The Vikings went 4-1 in the tournament but, prior to that, they put together a 12-game winning streak between April 12 and May 5. Bethany Lutheran will be one of the better offensive teams that CUC has faced recently, hitting a collective .335 and averaging nine runs per game. Their top hitter is Ross Beumer (3.86), followed closely by Ben Boran (.378) and Grant Becher (.374). The Vikings have some homerun power in Nick Caldeen (7), Mylo Hommes (6) and Beumer (5), while Becher is the team's leader in RBIs with 35.

The BLC pitching staff has a collective ERA of 4.51. The Cougars might see one of two starters Thursday, depending on what side the Vikings want to throw from. Lefty Cody Leitner is 3-2 with a 3.68 ERA, 43 strikeouts and 17 walks in 51.1 innings, while righty Logan Nissen is 5-1 with a 4.60 ERA, 50 strikeouts and 26 walks in 47 innings. On paper, BLC does not appear to have a defined closer, as they have five difference pitchers with one save each.

This regional will have a different feel for CUC with the six-team setup, rather than the eight to which the Cougars have been accustomed. In addition, the Cougars have already faced two of the other teams in this regional, North Central College and the University of Dubuque, so the field of "unfamiliar faces" becomes a little smaller. However, one thing does not change, and that is the importance of winning the first game, leading CUC head coach Mike Stawski to say that "right now, our focus is only on Bethany Lutheran and trying to win that opening game." If the Cougars have one advantage that is perhaps more at the forefront now, it is the fight that the Cougars showed last weekend. "We showed a tremendous amount of fight in those games, and I think some of our guys will come in angry that they didn't (win the tournament). I think that if we see some of that fight and attitude this weekend, we should be alright."   

Fans are invited to make use of the following links, which will be in effect throughout the entire regional:

Live stats - http://www.sidearmstats.com/css/baseball/
Live video - https://csssaints.com/watch/?Live=182&type=Live
Regional Page - https://csssaints.com/sports/2018/5/6/umacbase2015.aspx

CUC Baseball - https://www.cucougars.com/index.aspx?path=baseball
CUC Twitter - https://twitter.com/CUChicagoSports
CUC Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/CUCAthletics/
CUC Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/cucougars/