Separation begins in NSIC

It didn't take long to establish the haves from the have-nots in Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference baseball.

On the opening weekend, Minnesota State, St. Cloud State and Augustana all won big while Northern State, Minnesota-Crookston and Concordia-St. Paul were the premier losers. St. Cloud swept UM-Crookston in four straight games, outscoring the Golden Eagles 59-1.

Minnesota State enjoyed similar results against Northern State. The Mavericks won the first two games by a combined score of 33-1 and have two more games yet to play today.

The Augustana/Concordia-St. Paul series was not nearly as lopsided, but the Vikings swept four games by outscoring the Bears 34-23.

It should be interesting to see if this trend keeps up. MSU assistant coach Tink Larson says the rest of the NSIC teams (not including Northern and Crookston) should be competitive. As a man who watches more games in a two-week period than I usually do in a whole season, I'll have to take Larson's word for it.

The MSU-Northern series resumes at noon today at the MSU field.