Periodically throughout the season, senior desginated hitter Aaron Cook will supply a blog for Fighting Sioux fans on the ins and outs of the UND baseball program. Cook's blog will also appear on www.pingbaseball.com as he is one of a several Division I baseball players supplying blogs for the collegiate baseball site.

Cook burst onto the scene last season for the Sioux as a redshirt junior, batting .328 with six home runs and 28 RBI.  All three of those totals ranked second on the team. The Erskine, Minn., native had just three at-bats in his UND career entering the program's first as a Division I member.

Volume 5: Rivalry Resumed

UND and NDSU had not played in a head-to-head contest in any team sport since 2005, but that all changed this past weekend. We played a four-game series with the Bison in the Metrodome that resumed a great rivalry. Everyone on the team was very excited for this series. Since most of us are from this area we know what this rivalry means and we were very enthusiastic to be the team that started it again.

The first game started off very well for us. We were the visiting team for the first two games and in the top of the first, we scored four runs. Most of them came with two outs, but the Bison would answer back with three of their own in the bottom of the inning.

Leading 5-4 in the sixth inning, the Bison had the bases loaded with two outs. Everyone was kind of on edge hoping to get out of the inning with the lead. Derek Biermaier was able to pick up the strikeout, one of twelve on the day. Everyone was thrilled and we had all of the momentum. Using this we were able to add three more runs in the seventh and put the Bison away, 8-4. For his pitching performance, Biermaier picked up Great West Pitcher of the Week honors. We were very happy about the win, but were ready to go out and get a sweep for the day.

Late in the second game, we had a scenario similar to the first. We were leading 2-1 in the fifth and the Bison once again had a great scoring threat. Sam Anderson was able to pitch himself out of this threat. Building on the momentum once again we were able to add a late run to push the lead to 3-1. Brandon Baumgartner came on and picked up the save in the seventh. It was a great day for us. We were able to pick up two wins and beating the Bison is always a good thing.

Coming into the second day, we were first looking to win the series before thinking about a four-game sweep. The first game was a back-and-forth game. The Bison took an early lead, but we were able to answer back and take the lead late. However, The Bison got a three-run homer and this proved to be too much for us to overcome as we lost the game 8-6.

The last game of the series was a very important game because it meant either winning the series of splitting the series. We came out and put the Bison away early. We scored early and often in the game. We put up ten runs, and holding off a late Bison rally we won 10-6. Josh Lagein stepped up and had three hits for us to pace the offense.

Overall, the series was good for us and was probably going to be one of our biggest this year. There was a lot of media attention around this game and it was a fun environment to play in. Up next for us, we begin conference play In Orem, Utah against Utah Valley University.