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Dan Leslie got the bunt down, and later got the winning run home as well.
Photo by Ryan Coleman, D3sports.com
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By Pat Coleman
D3sports.com
GRAND CHUTE, Wis. -- From the first day of practice in the winter, coaches stress the fundamentals of baseball.
If you've played the game, coached the game, or followed it closely you know the drill: Baseball's so-called little things include hitting behind the runner, getting bunts down, throwing to the right base on balls hit to the outfield or hitting the cutoff man.
Here in Appleton, a lot of the little things didn't happen. Early on in the championships, seemingly basic plays were at issue, such as retiring the batter who's trying to sacrifice. Trinity (Conn.) and Farmingdale State each went two-and-out, committing seven errors apiece.
"Certainly from a defensive standpoint, we not only didn't throw, we didn't catch either," Bantams coach Bill Decker said after his team committed six errors in an opening-round loss to Kean.
But when the dust settled, the two most fundamentally sound teams were left standing, and they put on another show on Tuesday as St. Thomas swept two games from Wooster, 6-4 and 3-2 to win the 2009 Division III baseball national championship.
"It was pretty obvious to me from watching practices and games that these were the best two teams in terms of hitting approach and fundamentals," said Lawrence coach Jason Anderson. "I wasn't surprised to see these were the last two standing."
"I thought both those teams were just solid baseball teams that made plays," said Rick Espeset, baseball coach at Manchester, who watched the entire tournament as part of his duties with the NCAA Division III baseball committee. "I think there were a couple bunt executions that didn't happen but for the most part those teams just played a great day of baseball."
St. Thomas won the first game in large part to two suicide squeeze plays. St. Thomas got its first run in the fourth inning on a squeeze by second baseman Louie Salmen, scoring third baseman Dan Leslie and moving Roy Larson to third, where he later scored. The second came in the ninth, when Leslie laid one down, bringing home right fielder Matt Olson for the final run of the game. Both had to reach down to make contact with low pitches.
"We only had one extra-base hit the whole day, so we're not a big power team," said Tommies coach Dennis Denning, who led his alma mater to its second national title. "That first game we got a couple squeeze bunts, a couple of push bunts over here, we were doing some hitting and running and we did a lot of small-ball stuff and it was working good for us. We were always putting a little pressure on, I thought."
In the second game, Leslie ended up being the hero despite fouling off a bunt opportunity and eventually grounding into a double play twice in the late innings.
"I wanted to be up there again," Leslie said. "I grounded into two double plays in the eight and the 10th. I knew I would be coming up in the bottom of the 12th.
"Olson started off with a base hit and Schmitty got him over and I just looked for a pitch and hit it hard, this time away from an infielder."
Anderson, who was coordinating the ball boys in the championships, actually spoke to Leslie before that final at-bat. "He said, 'Yeah, I'm just going to hit the top half of the baseball this time.'
"It's a difference in approach, and being a senior like that kid was, he went up cleared his head and focused on doing one thing."
And where the Tommies were having success, the Scots were struggling. Brandon Stone, who was hurting and hadn't pitched in the postseason, came in and threw seven innings of shutout relief, throwing no more than 11 pitches in any inning.
"Even in the regionals, St. Thomas very rarely missed a mistake by any pitcher all week. If it was a hanging breaking ball or belt-high fastball it was usually put into play and put into play hard," Anderson noted.
"Wooster was doing that until they lost the first game today. After that they were pressing a little bit and St. Thomas pitchers were sneaking a few by."
Stone agreed: "We were working outside a lot of the guys and I noticed after that first inning they crept up on the plate, trying to hit those into right. I knew they were going to be hacking right away. There were a lot of quick outs."
In the end, no one thing won St. Thomas the 2009 Division III baseball championship. But a lot of little things added up to the title.