SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - The Augustana baseball team travels up the road for a pair of midweek games against Sioux Falls at the Birdcage on Wednesday afternoon, with first pitch slated for 4 p.m. 

Complete action can be followed on GoAugie.com/Live and the GoAugie app, presented by The Original Pancake House. The app can be downloaded in the App Store or Google Play. 

Series History
The Vikings are 40-16 all-time against the Cougars after sweeping a doubleheader last season. The Vikings are 7-4 as the road team and will be at the Birdcage for the first time since 2019. 

The Cougars
Sioux Falls enters the weekend 15-19 overall and 11-9 in the NSIC after taking three of four from Bemidji State last weekend. Mitch Iliff is hitting .378 with 17 extra base hits, including seven home runs, and a 1.083 OPS while Isaac Bonner has a team-high 25 RBI while slashing .365/.429/.577. Jake Ammann leads the staff with 49 strikeouts while Dylan Immel has three saves and 18 strikeouts in 19 2/3 innings

The Vikings
Augustana is unranked after taking three of four against UMary. The Vikings are 19-10 on the year and 14-6 in the NSIC 

Head coach Tim Huber is in his 17th season at the helm for AU and holds an all-time record of 613-276-1. Huber is the reigning NSIC Coach of the Year and has led the Vikings to eight national tournament appearances, including the 2018 NCAA Division II National Championship. 

The Vikings are third in the country in fielding percentage at 0.981, sixth in K/9 at 10.2, 12th in scoring at 9.4 runs per game, 18th in stolen bases per game at 2.93, 21st in batting average at .332, 23rd in on base percentage at .431 and 26th in hits allowed per nine innings at 8.60.

Jack Hines has 32 hits over a 16 game on-base streak and is batting .463 (fifth nationally) with 34 RBI and 30 runs scored. The reigning National Player of the Year has seven doubles, a triple and three home runs and has a .516 on base percentage while going a perfect 17-17 on stolen bases. His 1.72 hits per game also ranks 11th in the country. 

Trevor Winterstein reached base to lead off all four games last week and went 7 for 15 with a home run, a double, a triple, seven runs scored and six RBI. He ranks second on the team with a .409 average and with seven home runs and a 1.191 OPS while scoring a team-high 43 runs. He is 10th in the country with 1.48 runs scored per game.

After a six hit weekend, Jason Axelberg is slashing .386/.471/.762 and leads the Vikings with 10 home runs, 37 RBI and added 29 runs scored and a 1.233 OPS. His 26 game on-base streak also leads the team. 

Joshua Koskie is fourth on the team with a .377 average. His 1.113 OPS is also fourth on the team and he has three home runs and 18 RBI to go along with a .506 on-base percentage.  

The freshmen have made major contributions to the offense this season. Carter Heinsch had five hits in a doubleheader on Sunday and has scored nine runs on the year. Bjorn Lind is hitting .370 in 18 games this season and has five multi-hit games since he was regularly inserted into the starting lineup. Kobe Eikmeier is hitting .276 in 22 games and 17 starts. Nate Soelter is 12 for 29 in his young career, hitting his first career home run on March 27 against Minnesota Duluth. 

Ashton Michek has turned in a good start to the season, holding a .239 opponent batting average while leading the team with 44 strikeouts. J.D. Hennen threw a no-hitter on March 9 against Bemidji State and has racked up 41 strikeouts in 31 2/3 innings. Hennen ranks eighth in the country with 5.68 H/9 allowed and 30th with 11.65 K/9

Harry Blum continued a strong stretch this past weekend, throwing 2 2/3 scoreless innings on Saturday. He has struck out 27 in 24 1/3 innings and is the only pitcher on staff with multiple saves (3).

Mariano Gomez leads the rotation with a 2.45 ERA. The first NSIC Pitcher of the Week of the season has struck out 33 in 22 innings and has allowed an opponent batting average of .192 while giving up just four extra base hits. 

Record Watch
Jack Hines has his name scattered across the all-time record list at Augustana and will have one more season to stake his claim. Hines is the all-time leader in triples (15) and times hit by pitch (47), second in total bases (482), third in runs scored (208), hits (287) and RBI (205), fourth in on-base percentage (.473), batting average (.399) and slugging percentage (.669), fifth in home runs (40), and eighth in stolen bases (61) and doubles (45). 

Trevor Winterstein is fourth in program history with 76 stolen bases. J.D. Hennen (.188) and Will Henry (.200) each find themselves among the all-time opponent batting average list, ranking fifth and seventh respectively, minimum 25 innings pitched.

Mariano Gomez, Henry and Ethan Cole have all established themselves with swing-and-miss stuff. Gomez is second all-time with 13.16 strikeouts per nine innings while Henry is fifth with 12.49 and Cole is 10th with 11.30.
 
Also climbing the career record books is Adam Diedrich, who ranks third all-time with 20 saves, four away from the record held by Bret Severtson (24, 2008-11).

Ashton Michek is the master of deception, holding the all-time record with 22 pickoffs. His two full seasons at Augustana are the top two seasons in program history in terms of pickoffs (six in 2023, 11 in 2024). He has also recently shot himself onto the all-time strikeout list, moving to ninth with 182 strikeouts.