Gopher baseball wins Big Ten Tournament

by GopherNation on May 31, 2010 10:18 PM CDT in Gopher Minor Sports

The Gophers finished off the Big Ten with a 15-5 win over Iowa on Saturday night. Just days after winning the program's 22nd Big Ten regular season title the Gophers won their 9th Big Ten Tournament title. Since 1995 this is only the fourth time a team has won both the regular season and tournament titles.

Senior catcher, Kyle Knudson was the tournament's most outstanding player. SP-Phil Isaksson, Closer Scott Matyas and infielder AJ Pederson were also named to the All-Tournament team.

Quite an amazing journey for this team who's record now stands at 30-28.

"For us it's been an interesting journey," said Minnesota Head Coach John Anderson. "The way it started and the obstacles we had, and for the guys to hang in there and not give in, I don't' think you could ask for more from this team. And then to finish it off in Columbus, Ohio with a Big Ten championship, I just have to give credit to our kids. I'm just really, really proud of our team."

The journey, however, isn't over as the Gophers head out West to the Fullerton Regional as the 4 seed. They will face Cal State Fullerton (the 1 seed) on Friday as 10 pm CST. Stanford and New Mexico will be the 2 and 3 seeds respectively.

Minnesota typically plays a very difficult schedule and this year was no different. The Gophers faced Regional hosts UConn and Louisville. They traveled to #2 seeded Alabama and they beat #3 seeded Kansas State. Their record wasn't spectacular in those games but it prepared for this part of the season and hopefully they'll continue their hot streak through the NCAA Tournament.

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Worth noting for the gallery

Alabama is A #2 seed, one of 16. Kansas State is A #3 seed, one of 16. Still all impressive wins for the Gophers, but as college baseball doesn’t have quite the following, this isn’t like the basketball tourney. Just for those that may read this in passing and think Minnesota beat #3 and #2 teams in the tourney.

by formerlyanonymous on May 31, 2010 10:55 PM CDT reply actions

Oh and good luck

I think this could be winnable for Minnesota. First game could be rough, but Gophers are playing great ball right now. Be thankful you’re not Kent State. Man, are they screwed! They have to play at #3 National Seed (THE #3 seed) UCLA, while the other two teams in their regional are LSU and UC Irvine. REGIONAL OF DEATH!

I’ve heard rumors that the Fullerton regional will be televised on the ESPN family of networks (probably ESPNU or ESPN3). They’ve already said that the UCLA regional won’t be shown nor streamed, which sucks. May work out well for Gopher fans.

by formerlyanonymous on May 31, 2010 10:57 PM CDT reply actions

I'd love to watch the game.

Hope it’s on

by COJOMAY on May 31, 2010 11:44 PM CDT reply actions

Group of Death

The Gophers are easily in the toughest group of the entire tournament. CS Fullerton is a perennial powerhouse—it would be like drawing a first round basketball game against Duke, Kansas, or the like. Stanford is pretty similar, although they have been somewhat down lately. New Mexico is a strong team this year that took 2 of 3 from Texas in Austin.

The Gophers deserve to be in this group, however, as the Gophers are the lone Big Ten qualifier for a reason. They will be in two and done and those losses will probably be pretty ugly.

by rencito on Jun 1, 2010 7:58 PM CDT reply actions