Sophomore RHP Steve Maher rebounded from his first loss five days earlier and set a school record with 16 strikeouts as the Tommies coasted to a 10-2 win over St. Mary's in the losers' bracket of the MIAC playoffs in Minnetonka.
The top-seed Tommies (33-7) will play St. John's at 11 a.m. Sunday and must defeat the Johnnies to earn a 2:30 p.m. title game rematch. At stake is an automatic berth in next week's NCAA regionals. Second-seed St. John's is 2-0 in the double-elimination tournament with wins over third-seed Bethel (7-3) and fourth-seed St. Mary's (4-2).
It was the second pitching gem of the day for St. Thomas. In an 11 a.m. elimination game, UST senior lefty Bruce Gapinski (8-0) shut out Bethel with his sixth complete-game effort of 2012 and his 27th career win, 7-0.
Maher (11-1) threw 136 pitches in Saturday night's complete-game effort and gave up only five hits and two unearned runs, but said he never got tired. He struck out seven of the last nine Cardinals in breaking Lonnie Robinson's school record of 15 strikeouts set against Northwestern (Minn.) in 2007.
"I hit my second wind later in the game," said the sophomore righthander, who struck out two Cardinals in the first, second, fifth, seventh and ninth innings and the side in the eighth. "I pride myself on staying in good shape, and I had to rely more on breaking stuff in the later innings. I was fortunate in that we got a few runs and I had a cushion."
Maher thought he had "good stuff" last Monday when he took a 10-0 record into a game at Gustavus but struggled in a 9-3 loss. "t was one of those days when anything I threw over the plate got hit," he said. "This week, I worked with the coaches on getting my slider over more consistently, and I mixed it up today with the curve and fastball."
Coach Chris Olean, a former All-American pitcher for the Tommies, said he thought Maher struggled early against St. Mary's ,"but eventually figured it out. He had more velocity on his fastball at the end and his slider was sharper. It's the best he's pitched in a month."
The game was close until the sixth inning. The Tommies held a 2-1 lead when J.D. Dorgan hit a one-out ground-rule double and Ryan Gerber walked. Jon Kinsel laced a single to center to score Dorgan, but the ball scooted by the charging St. Mary's centerfielder. Gerber and Kinsel easily scored to bump the lead to 5-1.
The Cardinals responded with a run in their half of the sixth but the Tommies put away the game with three runs in the seventh on four hits, including a double by Charles Bruchu and a triple by Dan Reichert. Their final two runs came in the ninth.
Bruchu had his second straight three-hit game. After a double and two home runs in the earlier 7-0 win over Bethel, the senior third basemen singled, homered and doubled in the nightcap. The third-inning home run gave the Tommies a 2-1 lead that held until their three-run sixth.
"It was just one of those days," Bruchu said. "As soon as the ball left the pitcher's hand, I was locked in on it and made good contact."
In the MIAC playoffs, three St. Thomas starters have allowed only one earned run in 26 innings for a 0.35 ERA.
If the Tommies defeat St. John's twice on Sunday, it will be the third time in five years they have come back through the losers' bracket to win the MIAC playoff title. They also accomplished that in 2007, defeating St. Olaf twice, and in 2010, with two wins over Augsburg.
UST-SMU box score:
http://miac-online.org/documents/2012/5/12/MIAC-5.boxscore.pdf?id=231