VALLEY CITY, N.D. – With the nice weather to the south and west of North Dakota, the Valley City State baseball team will open the season this weekend in Mitchell, South Dakota.
The Vikings were scheduled to open next week in Kansas, but it has been so nice in South Dakota, they will head to Mitchell instead for two doubleheaders with Dakota Wesleyan.
The Vikings and Tigers are scheduled to play Saturday at 1:00 pm and 3:00 pm at Drake Field in Mitchell. On Sunday, the games are at 12:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m.
The Vikings are coming off a 3-2 Fall season and Head Coach
Alec DeMaria, who is starting his third season at the helm of the Vikings, likes the direction the team is headed after a great fall season. "Our team is thrilled to be taking the field for the spring. Our team was really firing on all cylinders and playing clean baseball at the end of the fall season. Now, after a lot of time and effort has been put into development in the past few months, this group is chomping at the bit to get back out there and play an opponent." DeMaria adds "there will be no motivation necessary. The message from our coaching staff will be to treat and approach this game just like any other game."
VCSU is coming off a 20-32 2025 campaign in which they won four straight games in the middle of April, before ending the season with three tough losses to Dickinson State by scores of 4-2, 6-3, and 1-0.
The Vikings return 17 letter winners off last season's squad led by two All-Conference selections,
Alexis Velasco and
Takao Cookson.
Velasco joined the Vikings with four years of eligibility making him eligible for freshman of the year honors. Earning Second Team All-Conference and NSAA Freshman-of-the-Year in his first year as a Viking, Velasco went on to lead the team with seven home runs and a .545 slugging percentage. He recorded 43 hits in 135 at bats, for an average of .319. Velasco tallied 22 RBIs, the third highest on the team. Velasco played most of his games as VCSU's primary first baseman.
The offensive lineup has several veterans returning after a very productive fall season.
Connor Hoyt led the way at the plate by hitting .400, with a double, triple, five runs, and five RBI.
Kaden Rozdeba hit .333. Junior
Cody Wielgosh hit .308 and scored four runs. Velasco hit .278 with three doubles. Newcomer
Nicholas Senn did it at the plate and behind it. The Junior hit .353 and threw out three would be base stealers.
Cookson, a starting pitcher, was awarded Honorable Mention All-Conference honors in his sophomore season. Cookson pitched 52.2 total innings going 3-3 in wins and losses. He started in nine games and recorded one save on the season. Cookson struck out 62 batters ranking eighth in the conference. Batters hit only .220 against Cookson.
The pitching staff has led the conference in strikeouts each of the last two years and returns most of the pitching staff for this season. Two of those arms are Cookson and
Connor Martin who led all freshmen in the NSAA in innings pitched and strikeouts a year ago. During the fall, Martin struck out 18 batters in 14 innings and had a 3.21 ERA. Cookson had a win and a save in the fall.
Grady Shipman pitched five innings and had a 1.80 ERA with three strikeouts.
Eli Chabot did not allow a run in 4 2/3 innings. He struck out five and allowed one hit.
Anthony Carrasquillo did not allow a run in two innings of work.
"We have high expectations for this season," Coach DeMaria said. "After back-to-back seasons of being an extremely young team, we now feature more veteran leadership. We are still young, but we aren't as young. Everyone on our roster and our coaching staff has held each other accountable to an extremely high standard. It's always interesting to see exactly how we look right when we get on the field, because we haven't been able to practice outside. However, we know the great talent and culture we have with this group. We expect to be playing high-level baseball quite soon."
Coach DeMariua is assisted by
TJ Hokanson,
Cameron Pitts,
Jay Mendez, and
Daegen Morcom
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