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| Baldwin Wallace is making its second appearance in the D-III World Series. Baldwin Wallace athletics photo by David Le |
Baldwin Wallace faced Endicott on day two of the NCAA Division III Baseball Super Regional series. The Yellow Jackets (37-11) earned the go ahead run in the top of the sixth and sustained that lead, defeating the Gulls (40-10) to claim the Super Regional title by a 7-4 final score. In the go-ahead hit by the Yellow Jackets, the team garnered the BW Team Hits record with 575 hits on the year and concluded the game by extending that record to 579 total hits. The Yellow Jackets surpass the previous World Series team from 2014, who notched 574 hits that season. "Our upper classmen play with such poise, our throwers pitch with such poise, and we just kept fighting and kept competing," coach Brian Harrison said. "All of our RBIs today were from juniors and seniors, and we pitched six guys who were juniors and seniors. Those upperclassmen carried us and played with poise, with confidence, and toughness."
No. 12 UW-Stevens Point (40-8) is headed to its sixth College World Series after finishing a Super Regional Round sweep of No. 9 UW-Whitewater (36-11) by an 11-7 final on Saturday. Senior Lucas Luedtke recorded his first career three-home game with two solo shots and a two-run blast. Shortstop Logan Matson had the decisive blow, though, a grand slam in the eighth inning. Both had four RBI on the day. Eight of UWSP's nine hitters had a hit in the game. Six Pointers had multi-hit games. JD Schultz started and went 5.0 with seven strikeouts. Nick Carpenter pitched a scoreless inning and Marcus Jaworski earned the win with 1.0 and a strikeout. Syvertson picked up the save with 1.1 frames and three strikeouts. UWSP reaches the 40-win plateau for the second time in program history. The Pointers went 41-10 in 2013, the last appearance in the College World Series.
No. 15 Trinity (Texas) will return to the NCAA III World Series for the third time in program history, first since it returned to the Alamo City with the National Championship in 2016. The Tigers (37-11) defeated this weekend's host No. 3 Birmingham-Southern College, 14-8, through a pair of explosive innings, the latter of which came to break away from a slim 9-8 lead in the final frame. Trinity won the best-of-three series in two games after defeating the Southern Athletic Association champs, 9-8, in Friday's series-opener. Senior outfielder Brian Schaub brought the early production with a grand slam to punctuate a six-run second inning for a 7-0 advantage that carried long enough for the bats to come back around in the final two frames as junior outfielder Ezra Gore broke up an 8-8 draw in the eighth before a five-run ninth sealed the victory. Saturday's decision was awarded to Trinity's sixth and final pitcher to take the mound as senior righthander Joel Thomas went the final two and two-thirds allowing just one walk after taking control with the late deadlock at eight runs apiece. Thomas heads into the NCAA III Championship with a 3-0 record from the bump.
Following a subpar showing in last week's NCAA Division III Baseball Regional, Trent Valentine returned to form on Saturday as he scattered six hits over seven innings as Marietta defeated Oswego State 13-2 in the first game of the Marietta Super Regional. "I knew I had to. To myself, I couldn't go out there and do that again," said Valentine, who improved to 13-1. "I thought that was embarrassing. I needed to get back to what I've been doing and that's what I did." Against Kalamazoo last week, Valentine only made it through three innings before coach Brian Brewer had to relieve the staff ace. On Saturday, Valentine reminded his coach why he earned first team All-Ohio Athletic Conference honors. "You can't say enough about the job Trent did. He was exceptional and executed our pitch plan," Brewer said. "Offensively, once we got rolling a little bit we moved the ball and did a really good job with two strikes. It's a lot of the things we did all year and it's the reason we're in this position."
Ithaca is just one win away from reaching the 2022 NCAA Division III World Series as the Bombers shutout Catholic, 4-0, in the first game of the Ithaca Super Regional at Freeman Field on Saturday. Ithaca is now 34-12 on the year after the Bombers recorded their first shutout of the season. Kyle Lambert was the story of the game on Saturday as the senior struck out 11 batters and allowed just four hits with one walk in 8.0 innings pitched. Lambert came out sharp in the first inning and retired the Cardinals in order on just 12 pitches.
Seventh-ranked Salisbury saw a 6-1 lead evaporate but forged ahead to stay in the ninth, besting the Wooster Fighting Scots, 8-6, in Game 1 of the NCAA Tournament Salisbury Super Regional at Donnie Williams Sea Gull Baseball Stadium. Luke Weddell played the hero of the day from the nine-hole, finishing 1-for-3 with the go-ahead RBI single in the ninth. Brandon Epstein (4-1) was the Sea Gulls' winning pitcher for the third straight game. Epstein pitched two perfect innings in the eighth and ninth, striking out four batters. Jimmy Adkins lasted 6.2 innings in a no-decision, giving up five runs on eight hits with no walks and seven strikeouts on 106 pitches. Wooster will need to win twice on Sunday, a task they had ahead of them just five days ago when they defeated Bethel twice to move to this weekend. Salisbury, who also needed two wins on the final day of their regional, will need just one more win as they defend the 2021 national title.