GRAND CHUTE, Wis. – The College of Wooster will play for the national championship.
Wooster defeated the University of St. Thomas 3-0 on Sunday (May 24) at the NCAA Division III Baseball Championship, and the Scots advance to the championship game on Tuesday (May 26).
Before Wooster (42-9) plays for the title, the Scots will face Chapman University (32-16) at 3:30 p.m. on Monday (May 25) at Time Warner Cable Field at Fox Cities Stadium. St. Thomas (38-13) faces Carthage College (38-8) in an elimination game at noon on Monday.
Win or lose against Chapman, Wooster is already in Tuesday’s championship game. If Wooster beats Chapman, St. Thomas or Carthage would have to beat the Scots twice on Tuesday to claim the title and Chapman would be eliminated. If the Scots lose, three teams would advance to Tuesday with one loss and Wooster would earn the bye into the title game.
Wooster, which will play for the national championship for the first time since finishing second in 1997, got a great pitching performance from Matt DeGrand. The Scots pounded out 11 hits, including three by center fielder Sean Karpen. DeGrand went seven innings, allowing only three hits while striking out three and walking none. Justin McDowell worked the final two innings for his second save of the season.
Zack Vesco, Karpen and Stu Beath all had run-scoring singles as Wooster plated single runs in the fourth, fifth and seventh innings.
Carthage and Chapman both won a pair of nail-biter elimination games to stay alive.
Carthage beat Shenandoah University (38-10) 9-8 in 11 innings on a solo homer from Mike Hughes.
Hughes belted the solo shot in the top half of the inning, and Mike Maher worked around a lead-off single in the bottom half of the inning to preserve the victory.
Maher retired the red-shot Greg Van Sickler, who was 4-for-6, for the final out of game.
Carthage built a 6-1 lead, thanks in part to John Lequia’s three-run homer, before Shenandoah rallied. The Hornets cut the lead to 6-5 and trailed 8-5 before rallying in the seventh and eighth. After Shenandoah scored two in the seventh, John Lambert singled to drive in another run in the eighth to tie the game at 8-8.
Chapman trailed 4-3 in the sixth inning but rallied for a 7-5 victory over Kean University (39-11).
D.J. Breckenridge and Mike Moceri both had two-run singles in the fifth to give Kean a 4-3 lead. Chapman came back in the top of the sixth and scored three times to take the lead back. The big blow in the inning was Ryan Prechtl’s two-run homer to give the Panthers a 6-4 edge.
Kean tacked on a run in the seventh and Chapman got that run back in the eighth to lead 7-5. Kean got back-to-back singles to start the bottom of the ninth, but Chapman pitcher John Semel struck out Moceri to end the contest. |
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