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| It was a big night for Birmingham-Southern, which earned a day off and a D3CS berth. Photo by Steve Frommell, d3photography.com |
The third day of the tournament is a bit of a wild card, as two teams will definitely get sent home, but we might lose as many as four. Sometimes we come out of Sunday night with our best-of-three Division III Championship Series set, and sometimes our brackets of four need one more game.
- Photo galleries: Game 9 | Game 10 | Game 11 | Game 12
- Saturday's Day 2 wrapup from Cedar Rapids
- Friday's Day 1 wrapup from Cedar Rapids
- D3baseball.com World Series Program
- D3baseball.com All-American Team
- World Series records
In the end, we have three teams remaining alive as we go into Monday. Birmingham-Southern clinched a spot in the D3CS by rolling past Johns Hopkins by the score of 15-4, while Mass-Boston and Chapman have to return Monday for a winner-take-all game. Birmingham-Southern chased Johns Hopkins’ starting pitcher after just one out and put up five in the first, then added five more in the fourth for good measure.
Johns Hopkins got to Sunday night in large part thanks to some heads-up and aggressive baserunning as well as a timely video review, and Josh Hejka came back two days after throwing 9-2/3 innings to get a tough ninth-inning save as Babson got within one run of tying the game. The second meeting between Johns Hopkins and Babson in three days looked a lot like the first, as the Blue Jays took one-run games from the Beavers in both outings. And no run proved more crucial than an insurance run in the ninth, where left fielder Tim Kutcher got things started with two outs and the bases empty. He one-hopped a double off the wall, then came around to score on a Chris Festa single, his third hit of the day.
Chapman advanced to Sunday's late games with an 8-4 win vs. Washington & Jefferson. The Panthers got a big defensive stop in the fourth and the Presidents did not get a hit after that. W&J had the bases loaded with nobody out and already had a run in in the inning, but lined into a double play. Cody Turner came out of the bullpen to give Chapman four shutout innings of relief. And that sent the Panthers into their second game of the day, where they scored four times in the top of the 10th to get past Mass-Boston, forcing a rematch on Monday.
Pat and Jim wrap it up below, including highlights: