NDSU Baseball’s Trip to NCAA Regionals Surreal Moment for the Seniors

Bison Play Stanford on Friday in Palo Alto Regional

FARGO, N.D. — North Dakota State baseball hearing their names called during the selection show as one of 64 teams in the NCAA Tournament field. The opponent? The number no. 9 seed Stanford on Friday  in the Palo Alto regional.

The Bison are back in this position for the first time since 2014 after winning their second Summit League title. The Cardinal finished third in the PAC-12 this season..However ,the game plan will get talked about later. Monday was all about celebrating.

There were four fifth year seniors and one sixth year senior who came back just for this moment and for it to actually happen is surreal.

“All the work we’ve put into this program and all those before us who taught us the ropes,” Summit League Tournament MVP Jake Malec said. “Everything that went into it, it so rewarding to finally in the last year were here, to win that championship.”

“Coach Oats and the rest of the pitching staff, we do a lot of mental training and he told us to visualize the dog pile at the end of the year with winning the summit league and I visualized myself getting that last out and for it to be a strikeout at the end was a dream come true,” closer Parker Harm said.

“They’re excited but they’re not overthinking anything. They’re not overconfident. They’re a focused group,” head coach Tod Brown said. “For me, its just looking at the team and seeing some of these guys go through it for the first time is really exciting stuff because its a great student athlete experience.”

The format is double elimination with games running through next Monday. The other two teams in the regional are the mountain west champions Nevada  and the Big West winners UC-Irvine. The Bison have never faced any of the three teams previously. Whoever takes it faces the champ of the Starkville region in the super regionals.