Bryan Nikkel
The Luther College baseball team is trying to squeeze in final exams before hitting the road for the NCAA Tournament.
The Norse are the sixth seed in the Midwest Region in LaCrosse, Wisconsin and will play third seeded North Central of Illinois in Wednesday’s opening round.
“Guys are finding a way to get them in and hopefully we can find some time to practice”, said Luther coach Bryan Nikkel. “We will make it work. Luther is a great place and professors will work with the guys and we are fortunate to be at a place like Luther College where we can get it all in.”
The Norse are coming off their first Iowa Conference Tournament championship since 2007. They rolled to a 4-0 record in the tournament and scored 39 runs.
“We’ve got to turn the page this week. Winning the tournament was huge but if we are going to go let’s play our best baseball and play our game.”
Joel Holst
Iowa Conference regular season champion Wartburg is the second seed in the Central Regional is Sauget, Illinois. The Knights will play fifth seeded Rose-Hulman of Indiana in Wednesday’s opening round.
“We’ve played Rose-Hulman a bunch in Florida and know their coaching staff well”, said Wartburg coach Joel Holst. “We respect their program and they are a good team.”
Darin Svenson at KDEC and Elwin Huffman at KOEL contributed to this story