By Savannah Singletary
Concordia University Chicago (CUC) mens’ baseball team looks to make a third straight appearance and having the ultimate feeling of pride in winning the NCAA Division III championship after trips in 2017 and 2018 respectively. This year’s team first step in conquering their supreme goal is to obtain their seventh (and consecutive) Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference title. The future’s looking bright, from coaches, sports information and fans alike, the CUC Cougars are here to make a roar.
Prior to season, the Northern Athletics Conference released their yearly preseason poll on February 8th. Keeping the Cougars in a favorable position once again: preseason favorite.
The poll results showed that Aurora University and Benedictine University are mostly likely to threaten CUC’s chronological chain of conference titles. The Cougars (#10 in D3Baseball.com preseason poll) were picked first with 285 points and 21 of a possible 24 first-place votes. Aurora was second with 255 points and two first-place votes, while Benedictine scored 232 points. Rounding out the top six were MSOE (196), Concordia Wisconsin (191) and Marian (185).
As of March 26, Aurora has a 11-3 record, losing their most recent game to Monmouth College 5-12. Benedictine has a 7-6 overall record losing at Ramapo college during their spring break trip 0-3.
While Benedictine lost to Rampo, our Cougars didn’t. The baseball team spent the spring break Florida trip with a perfect 6-0 record.
The season being just a quarter of the way done, the team stands with a record of 11-1, losing only their season opener. The American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA), released their weekly poll, on March 26, showcasing the Cougars clinching the first spot out of 25 teams nationally-this is the first time ever for CUC. The 2018 Cougars peaked at the number 4 spot twice with the baseball polling, once after week seven (midway of the season for a gauge point), and then again in the final poll of the season after finishing 40-15 at the Division III World Series. Then 2019 Cougars climbed even higher in lesser time.
On March 26, the NCAA Northern Athletics conference stood as CUC being first, Marian second, and Aurora in third. Followed by Wisconsin Lutheran (WL), Benedictine, Dominican, Illinois Tech (IIT) , Rockford, Concordia University Wisconsin (CUW), Milwaukee School of Engineering (MOSE), Edgewood and Lakeland respectively. Conference play does not start until March 30th, with the first opponent of CUC being Edgewood. The top six teams of the conference move onto the tournament; Benedictine is ineligible to participate in the tournament due to their division transitions.
While the conference tournament does not take place until early May (Wednesday, May 8th through Saturday, May 11th), from now until then will be generally all conference games with a few non-conference sprinkled in the schedule too. Split pretty evenly the Cougars will be playing at home, at “The Thunderdome” as the team calls it, often within the month of April, and also having a postponed game from March to finish to add to the home mix. All in all, the Cougars have 40 regular season games, over half of them (22) are conference games. Cougars are 71-7 at home since the 2013 season and 136-28 against conference opponents.
The team will play their home opener against Marian, March 31st. Other key dates to watch out for are April 13th, with the Cougars hosting rival CUW and April 27 facing off with Aurora, and May 4th closing out conference play against Benedictine.
