Jackson Gerber, Staff Writer, Photo by Noah Anderson

Mother nature was not a factor during the first outdoor baseball and softball games of the season. In what has become a yearly tradition, the Auggie Baseball and Softball teams
took a trip to sunny Tucson, Ariz., where the weather was gorgeous all week long. The Baseball team went 4-6 on the trip while the Softball team went 3-7.

The Baseball team started their week of games against Framingham St. University
in Massachusetts. The Auggies committed five errors and were 10-runned by the Rams, losing 14-4 in eight innings. Sophomore Dylan Foote went 2-4 with a double and a triple. The Auggies then faced Concordia-Wisconsin in a double header. The bats were not awake in the first 5 game as Augsburg was defeated 14-1. Sophomore Jordan Peoples collected the lone RBI for the Auggies.

The second game also went to Concordia by a score of 8-3. Senior Zach
Bakko went 2-4 with a double as he collected two of the six hits for the Auggies. After losing three straight, Augsburg got their first win of the week defeating Marian University 10-8. Down three runs in the bottom of the eighth, the Auggies collected five hits and capitalized on three Marian errors to score five runs and win 10-8.

The bats stayed hot in a double header against Greenville University as the Auggies scored nine runs on 14 hits to win 9-6 game one. Augsburg closed out its trip splitting a double header against Carroll University, winning game one 6-2 and losing game two 10 -6.
The Softball team played 10 games against 10 different opponents down in Tucson with the first against Chapman University. The Auggies came out on the losing end of the contest by a score of 10-2. They quickly bounced back with an 11-1 victory against the College of Staten Island. The Auggies scored seven of their 11 runs in the first inning of the game. Anesia King had four RBI with three coming on a three run home run. The bats stayed hot against Rochester IT as Augsburg won 8-3. Morgan Malley went 2-3 with a three run home run to lead the Auggies.

Augsburg’s comeback came up just short in a 7-6 loss to Central College in their next game. The Auggies scored three in the sixth inning and three more in the seventh, but it was not enough for the victory. Dickinson College was the Auggies’ next opponent in Tucson. Augsburg gave up nine unanswered runs to Dickinson college as they fell 11-3. The Auggies took care of business against the University of Dubuque as Sam Anderson struck out seven to lead the team to a 9-2 victory.

The Auggies unfortunately ended their trip on a four-game losing streak. After losing 7-2 to Stevens IT and 11-0 to Cornell College on the second to last day of the trip, they lost 13-6 against Case Western Reserve University and 3-2 to Hood College.

This article first appeared in the Friday, March 23, 2018, Edition of The Echo.