Gophers Baseball Continues Big Ten Climb After Series Win at Penn State

Gophers baseball stayed red-hot this weekend with a two-game-to-one series win at Penn State. Their winning streak got all the way up to seven before losing the series finale on Sunday, 4-3. They're now 29-18 with a 10-14 conference record heading into the final two weeks of the regular season.

Big Ten standings

Minnesota is currently in a three-way tie for ninth place in the Big Ten standings. That means if the season ended today, they would qualify for their first appearence Big Ten tournament since 2019. The top 12 teams in the conference make the tournament, and the Gophers now have a one-game cushion on 12th-place Rutgers.

Big Ten baseball standings on May 4. | Photo credit: Bigten.org

With two weeks of the regular season still remaining, there are still plenty of seeding scenarios left to play out. The Gophers' best conference finish since 2019 was a tie for 11th place in 2024 at 11-13. No matter how the regular season ends, they've shown improvement.

Final regular season series

Minnesota has a challenging end to the regular season with a series against second-place Nebraska and fifth-place Michigan, both of which have sights set on the NCAA Tournament rather than the Big Ten tournament.

Fortunately for the Gophers, both series are at home at Siebert Field. They currently have an eight-game winning streak at home, and any success against the Cornhuskers or Wolverines would go a long way in breaking their Big Ten tournament drought.

How they've done it

RHP Isaac Morton has been one of the Gophers' most effective pitchers all season, and the Texas A&M transfer continued to find success against Penn State. He had eight strikeouts in five innings in the first game of the series, while allowing just two runs and two hits.

Senior catcher Weber Neels has been performing at an All-Conference level all season, and he went 3 of 12 with 1 home run and 6 RBIs against the Nittany Lions. Minnesota clearly has a better team than it did last season. It has continued to prove that over the last few weeks, while overcoming a rough start to conference play.

Finishing in the top 12 of the Big Ten standings and getting back to the conference tournament felt like a realistic goal for Ty McDevitt in his second year as the head coach of the Gophers. Their NCAA Tournament at-large hopes probably ended after their 3-10 start to conference play, but Nebraska did earn an automatic bid after winning last year's Big Ten tournament as the eighth seed. It's clear that Minnesota is playing its best baseball at the end of the season.

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