GRAND CHUTE, Wis. - On Sunday, after the State University of New York-Cortland used five pitchers in a marathon 15-12 win over Chapman University, a reporter asked head coach Joe Brown if he was worried about his team's pitching depth.

     No worries, Brown stated.

     Monday's results provided a ringing endorsement of Brown's response.

     With a 5-0 win over Wartburg College in Monday's first elimination game, and a 4-1 win over the College of Wooster in the second game, Cortland State (43-8-1) advanced to Tuesday's national championship game against Wisconsin-Whitewater (44-7) at 1 p.m.

     Whitewater, as the lone unbeaten team remaining in the tournament, will only have to win one game to claim the national title; Cortland State would have to win twice over the Warhawks, in the 1 p.m. game and the 4:30 p.m. "if-necessary" game, to claim a national title for the first time in school history.

     Wooster finished its season at 39-10, claiming third-place honors at the national finals.

     Two dominant pitching performances highlighted the day for Cortland State on Monday - a complete-game five-hitter by Jim Dougher in the victory over Wartburg, and a seven-and-two-thirds-inning performance by Ryan Hooper in the win over Wooster.

     Hooper struck out five while allowing just one walk and six hits in the victory, only allowing a run after a leadoff double by Kurt Kapferer in the second inning. From the third inning on, Hooper only allowed seven runners to reach base, and his defense was able to squelch several Wooster rallies.

     "They proved my point," Brown said of his pitchers. "Getting a performance in the first game was huge by Jimmy Dougher. Jimmy gave us nine innings, he stepped up and helped us. (There was a) great discussion as to who we were going to start in the second game … In the coaches' minds, we felt a good curveball pitcher had to be someone that could go out on the mound. Ryan has one of the better curveballs (on the team). This kid has had one start this year, and what he did today was monumental."

     Reliever Nick McPartland, making his third pitching appearance of the tournament, picked up his sixth save of the season, recording a strikeout and just one walk in an inning-and-one-third of work.

     "I was just hoping to give the team as much of myself as possible, as many innings as I could get, to try to save the arms to make it to the next game," said Hooper, who recorded his longest outing of the season on Monday.

     After an opening-round loss to Wooster on Friday - a 7-6 loss that ended at 1:45 a.m. - Cortland State has now won four games in a row, and avenging the earlier loss to the Scots proved to be a tempting challenge for the Red Dragons.

     "That was a close game we played in the first game, and we thought we were the better team. We lost a few opportunities to win that game," said center fielder Jimmy Basnight. "It's fun. Playing right now is fun. We don't even think of it as, we're one loss away from losing (the season). It's how many more wins do we need? But I feel like it was a lot of payback in this game. They beat us and we wanted to beat them back."

     Meanwhile, Wooster also got a solid pitching performance in its final game of the season, from brothers Adam and Walt Samson. Freshman Adam started and pitched his longest performance of the season, netting a season-best five strikeouts against just one walk in seven innings of work, and junior Walt relieved him and struck out two in the eighth inning.

     "Adam was phenomenal," said teammate Luke Ullman, the senior shortstop and Division III National Player of the Year. "He pitched an excellent game. As a freshman going out there in a decisive game, and competing the way he did, it showed a lot about his character and about how he's going to be in the future."

     Cortland State took an early lead, as Basnight led off the first inning with a single and scored on a sacrifice fly by Andy Mead. In the fourth, Mead led off the inning with a double off the left field wall, moved up a base on a throwing error and scored on a single to right by Ricky Piovesan. Both Mead and Piovesan had two hits to lead the Red Dragons.

     Wooster had several scoring threats -- getting runners on base in each of the final four innings, including having runners at second and third with just one out in the fifth. But none could advance further as Cortland State had a solid defensive effort, pulling off a double play early and netting key inning-ending defensive plays down the stretch.

     Rob Romick had two hits to lead the Scots.

     The Red Dragons put two runners aboard on a single to left and an infield single in the sixth, and Shawn Ensel drove a run in on a two-out single up the middle. Cortland State pulled off a double-steal in the eighth inning to add an insurance run, as pinch runner Will Groff came home from third when Zach Tacelli was able to successfully steal second.

Written By Don Stoner
Augsburg College Sports Information Director

Photos By Lehigh Photo