After dropping two of its last three games, the South Dakota State baseball team looks ahead to a three-game series against rival North Dakota State this weekend.

The series against NDSU was originally supposed to be played at Erv Huether Field in Brookings. But due to unplayable field conditions, the series was moved to Council Bluffs, Iowa. There will be a doubleheader March 31 followed by the series finale April 1 in Omaha.

“It’s difficult, but we’re really fortunate to have good partners,” Bishop said. “Western’s gonna allow us to play there on Friday down in Council Bluffs, the folks at Omaha are going to let us piggyback with them on Saturday so neither of those places would have to do that.”

Coach Rod Bishop knows how tough it is going to be playing the defending regular season Summit League champions on a neutral site but wants the game to be decided on the field and says there are no excuses with the games. 

“They’re a great team, they’re really athletic,” Bishop said of NDSU. “They’ve had the same front two rotation guys since they were true freshmen, so a lot of experience there. Tyler always does a great job with the pitchers. And they’re a pretty dynamic offense, so I expect it to be a good challenge and definitely a challenge for our hitters so this will be a truly good test for us.” 

The Bison are 5-18 overall this season. They opened up their conference schedule last weekend against Omaha, winning two of the three games.

Peter Brookshaw leads NDSU in batting average (.327) and home runs (eight) and is third on the team in RBIs (19). Druw Sackett leads in RBIs with 21.

For the Jackrabbits, senior Ryan McDonald has been their best player at the plate. He leads the team in home runs (eight) RBIs (16) and batting average (.380). Dawson Parry is second on the team in batting average, hitting .377 and has 14 RBIs this season.

For the pitching staff, both Ryan Bourassa and Jake Goble have an earned run average under four. Bourassa leads with a 3.31 ERA and Goble is second at 3.78.

SDSU opened up Summit League play last weekend and dropped two of its three games against Northern Colorado. The Jacks lost the first of their doubleheader Friday 9-7 before winning 17-3 in seven innings afterwards. They wrapped up the series with a 9-6 loss on Sunday. 

The Jacks (5-14, 1-2) trailed 4-1 after the first inning but tied things up after the fifth, at five runs apiece. They took a two-run lead in the seventh, both scores coming from Parry. The Bears then scored four more runs in the bottom of the eighth to take back the lead after a three-run home run from Caden Wagner. 

Northern Colorado (4-16, 2-1) had the advantage in hits in the game at 10-8, with Parry and Nic Nelson having three hits each for SDSU. 

In the second game of the day, the Jacks came out firing with 17 runs, a season-high and 16 hits, their second-most of the season so far. Goble held the Bears to four hits in five innings.

“He’s just an awesome kid,” Bishop said of Goble. “He’ll do whatever you ask and just has come out and competed really hard for us. In both of those starts, he’s been in trouble early and pitched his way through it and given us five strong. That’s what you need out of your starter.”

In the final game of the series, the Jacks found themselves trailing the whole game and were never able to come back from it. They lost 9-6 after the Bears had back-to-back three-run innings in the second and third. 

“We hit a lot of balls on the last day, we just really couldn’t get our footing,” Bishop said after the Jacks’ 14th loss of the year. “We were playing from behind early. It’s kind of like being down 15 in a basketball game where you use all your energy to get back into it. Our guys fought hard, and we played hard, we just didn’t play particularly well on the mound or defensively.”