Drew Butler rounds the bases on his first-inning homer. He added a double in the third inning. Photo by Larry Radloff, d3photography.com

Postgame news conferences

By Pat Coleman
D3sports.com

GRAND CHUTE, Wis. – In a game that started in front of a large crowd but ended in front of Tigers fans and a few additional hardy stragglers, Trinity University did its darndest to make sure that there wouldn’t be a national champion crowned on Tuesday at the 2015 Division III World Series. They jumped on unbeaten UW-La Crosse for 11 runs in the first three innings en route to a 16-6 win on Monday night.

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The win forces a winner-take-all game between the Tigers and Eagles at 11 a.m. CT on Tuesday morning, with the winner going on to face Cortland State (43-4) in a best-of-three series for the championship.

The Tigers (40-13) made sure their hot hitting streak continued. After Trinity pounded out 18 hits in a 10-1 win vs. Emory in an elimination game, the Tigers came out and scored two in the first, four in the second and five in the third to chase starter Troy Kenkel as well as reliever Jameson Lavery.

Kenkel was actually one pitch away from striking out the side in the first inning, but ended up losing Jeremy Wolf to a walk. Drew Butler followed with a homer straight down the left field line to give Trinity a 2-0 lead.

Trinity really felt the momentum swing. "I went down looking first inning, Colin struck out too, so it was awesome to get some momentum in that first inning," said Connor Moore, who ended up 4-for-6 on the night. "Jeremy gets on with the two outs and then Butler hits the bomb. It was a great feeling going out in the field (after that)."

The Tigers came right back out swinging in the second. Jose Santos rapped a single to right and Eagles catcher Ben Morgan committed a throwing error on Austin Singer’s sacrifice bunt attempt. Nick Jewett tried to sacrifice them over, but was unable to do so, instead delivering an RBI single up the middle to bring Santos home. Moore followed with a triple down the line in right to clear the bases and came in on a sac fly to make it 6-0.

"They’re obviously a very good baseball team and they swing the bat very well," said UW-La Crosse coach Chris Schwarz. "They hit some good pitches. They also hit some pitches that we threw down the middle."

UW-La Crosse (35-14) scratched out a run in the bottom of the second but the Tigers sent 10 men to the plate in the third and scored five runs. The Eagles showed signs of life in the fifth, pushing across a pair of runs. They also got walks from Joel Zyhowski and Eric Vatch, the bottom two hitters in the order, to lead off the sixth, but Trent Rape recovered to strike out Alex Cordova and Taylor Kohlwey, then picked Justin Anderson’s smash back to the mound and threw him out to end the inning. 

Even though Rape had a 12-4 lead at the time, he could feel his adrenaline waning and tried to rally himself after the walks. "I’m just thinking that I need to execute," Rape said. "Some of (the pitches) were off and some of them were pretty close to the strike zone. I just knew that I needed to execute better and go and get those guys out because I knew I could get them without letting those runs score."

Trinity put two more runs on the board in the seventh and coasted to the win.

Moore went score four runs and had five RBI, while Wolf was 4-for-5 with a pair of runs and Butler 2-for-4 with the homer and four RBI. The five UW-La Crosse pitchers combined to give up 19 hits and 16 runs, though just nine were earned.