For the 18th time in the last 19 years, Tommie baseball is going back to the NCAA regionals.
The No. 2-ranked Tommies topped Concordia-Moorhead 11-2 in Sunday's MIAC playoff championship game in Minnetonka, Minn., to earn an automatic berth into the NCAA Division III tournament.
St. Thomas showed its balance in pitching (15 strikeouts), hitting (17 hits), hitting for power (a home run, two triples and five doubles) and defense (no errors for the nation's second-best fielding team).
The win gave St. Thomas (33-5) its ninth title in the 14 years the MIAC has had a playoff and the second in Chris Olean's four seasons as coach. The Tommies defeated Augsburg in the 2010 title game but lost to Hamline and St. John's the last two years.
The Tommies, winners of 25 of their last 26 games, finished 21-1 against conference opponents. On Monday, they will soon learn their regional assignment. They have been sent to the Midwest Regional in Wisconsin in each of their last 17 trips, but could be sent to the Central Regional in Moline, Ill.
Olean went into Sunday's game against Concordia (19-15) with a plan to use three or four pitchers, not expecting too many innings from anyone but wanting to give several of them a chance to stay sharp.
The Tommies staked sophomore Colin Wendinger to a 2-0 lead in the first inning on three straight one-out hits – a Jon Kinsel bunt single, a Tyler Peterson RBI double, and a Dylan Thomas RBI single. They added a run in the fourth when Ryan Gerber's sacrifice fly followed a triple by Jack Hogan.
That's all the St. Thomas pitchers needed. Wendinger ran his scoreless streak to 24 innings and struck out eight Cobbers in four innings, including the last seven he faced. He fanned the side in the third and fourth. He gave up two walks and turned the ball -- and a no-hitter -- over to senior Mark Dominik in the fifth.
St. Thomas' offense put the game away with eight runs over the next three innings. Two runs in the fifth came on "small ball" -- three infield singles and a wind-blown J.D. Dorgan popup that dropped behind the first baseman. Three runs in the sixth came on power, including a Sam Miller triple and RBI doubles from Kinsel and Thomas.
And the final three runs in the seventh came on more power off the bat of Gerber, who hit his second three-run home run over the right-field fence in two days. Gerber came to the plate 0- for-2 with a sacrifice fly RBI on the day and knocked out the first pitch.
Olean stuck to his pitching plan, using freshman Matt Behounek in the eighth and senior All-American Steve Maher in the ninth. Behounek struck out the side and Maher had two strikeouts to give St. Thomas 15, easily the staff's season high. Dominik got the win.
Every starter had at least one hit, with Thomas leading the way with four and Kinsel and Ben Podobinski each getting three.