Concordia Cobbers baseball prepares for MIAC Tournament

MOORHEAD, M.N. (Valley News Live) - This year’s Concordia Cobber baseball team has a simple, yet effective message.

“Baseball’s contagious, so, keep on hitting,” Cobber shortstop Thomas Horan said.

That hitting mentality boosted Concordia to 262 of them, a new single-season MIAC record, plus 14 conference wins, the most since 2010. All that winning adds up to back-to-back postseason appearances.

“Really honestly, the way we explain it here to our guys is just try to win every pitch, every inning,” acting head coach Anthony Renz said. “I know it’s cliche, it’s coach-speak, but as long as we can stay in the moment with what’s in front of us at that current time and win those situations like we have pretty much the entire conference season, we’re gonna put ourselves into a good position to win the whole thing.”

“Ah, man, it’s been amazing,” Horan said. “Everyone’s put in the work, we’re all just having fun, it’s baseball. We get to come out here, it’s sunny, and just play the game that we love to play.”

Even with the incredible effort by the whole team, the Cobbers most effective hitter is senior Andy Gravdahl, who broke the all-time record for most hits in a career as a Cobber plus earning more hits, runs, doubles, home runs and RBIs this year than his award-laden 2022 campaign.

Despite all that, Gravdahl still puts team over everything.

“We talk about my accomplishes a lot, but they’re really not that far behind in stats, or anything like that,” Gravdahl said. “Just to be with the guys and the camrade is as high as it can be right now, so it’s been great.”

The Cobbers seek their first postseason win since 2015, and they have the chance in a first-round battle with St. John’s.

“Go one-and-one, day one,” Gravdahl said. “If you start reaching for the championship, you start losing track of mission one, and that’s, ya know, beat the Johnnies.”

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