Winter on the NDSU campus means it is the busiest time of year for the athletic department as five sports are happening at once. Week to week these five sports produce tremendous results and performances. Here at The Spectrum, it is our job in the sports section to keep you informed on all sports not just certain sports so from this week forward we will continue to cover the basketball and track programs. Still, we will now also quickly highlight the other sports’ scores and performances from the past week.
Softball
The NDSU Softball team is looking to return to their Summit League title-winning ways as the 10x league champions were picked to finish fourth in this year’s poll. The team started on the road as they headed to North Carolina for the UNC Wilmington tournament against DePaul and UNC Wilmington. The team won both games by a combined score of 8-3 and then headed to Greenville and Durham for games at East Carolina and #10 Duke. Those two games didn’t fare as well as they lost a 5-4 contest to the Pirates and then were dismantled by the Blue Devils 18-0. The Bison continued their next pit stop on their North Carolina road trip, the Marucci Classic, and the Bison played a classic against Elon as they won 8-7 in extra innings thanks to Ava Chavarria who robbed a home run to seal the win. NDSU lost its afternoon tilt with the host school NC State 6-4. The Bison wrapped the Marucci Invitational by playing three games against Elon, Campbell, and UConn. The Pheonix of Elon bested the herd 7-5 in another extra-inning game but the Bison would recover by beating the Camels of Campbell 7-2. On Sunday the 18th, NDSU won its last game of the invitational by besting the Huskies of Uconn 3-1 behind Piper Reed’s career-high nine-strikeout performance and holding Connecticut to one run over 6 and third innings of work. The Bison would score three runs on three hits in the sixth to win the game. The softball team’s next games will be in College Station, Texas to participate in the Texas A&M Invitational where they will face Southeastern Louisiana, Texas A&M, and Kansas.
Women’s Golf
The women’s golf team opened its season at the Mountain Classic in Palm Desert, California. NDSU faced off against St.Thomas, Portland State, and Seattle. The team won the ladder two matches thanks to Madi Hicks and Leah Skaar as they each won all three of their matches to secure wins over Portland State and Seattle. Their next event is the Grand Canyon Invitational which will be played on February 27th and 28th.
Wrestling
The NDSU wrestling team has hit the wall this season as former head coach Roger Kish left to take the head coaching job at Oklahoma and the Bison have yet to recover as they sat at 3-9 overall and it didn’t get better against #7 Missouri as the Tigers beat the Bison 32-6. NDSU has lost its last four meets and now will face South Dakota State in another “Border Bell” showdown. This is NDSU’s last dual meet before the Big 12 championships.
Baseball
The Bison baseball team was picked to finish second in the preseason poll behind the defending conference champion, Oral Roberts. The team opened its season at UC Irvine and it wasn’t pretty as the Anteaters dominated the Bison in all three matchups, they won by scores of 14-2,7-2, and 10-4. The Bison look to get back on the right foot during this California road trip as they play Long Beach State, Cal Poly, and Pacific this week.