Small ball served St. Thomas pretty well throughout its 2021 run to the MIAC regular-season title and No. 1 seeding in the Midwest Region.
But the Toms needed more than small ball to match St. Mary's big hits that broke open Saturday night's pivotal rematch and produce a 6-3 SMU win. The Cardinals (29-14) claimed their program's first MIAC playoff championship and first NCAA tourney appearance since 1993.
SMU never trailed and used a three-run homer and three doubles to build an early 6-2 lead. Coach Chris Olean's Tommies were coming off two consecutive comeback wins in the losers' bracket but couldn't get the third.
The Tommies had a solid five-game showing in the tournament (3-2) with 29 runs and 54 hits. But their patient, efficient attack this week produced no home runs, only one triple and seven doubles, to go with 46 singles. They still won a lot of April and May games despite hitting only one round tripper in their last 20 contests.
St. Thomas sent a group of younger arms out to try to win what was their fourth game in 32 hours. Sophomore Jake Lindsay, making his second career start, worked the opening two innings and allowed two runs. Freshman Matt Moore pitched two innings in his varsity debut and gave up one run. Redshirt freshman Jeremy Klick worked the fifth inning and gave up three runs. Freshman Kolby Gartner worked three scoreless innings to finish.
St. Thomas (29-7) will learn late Sunday night whether it receives one of the few NCAA at-large berths. The Tommies have these positives supporting their case:
- The Purple won the MIAC regular-season title, and won 15 of their last 17 and 26 of their last 30 games
- They finished a combined 10-3 on the season against 31-win Northwestern-St. Paul (UMAC conference champ) and 29-win St. Mary's (MIAC playoff champ)
- They went 2-1 vs. MIAC runner-up and No. 3 ranked region team Gustavus, and 2-0 against 20-win St. Scholastica
- Six of their seven losses came by three runs or less
- They rank at or near the top of Division III in ERA, runs allowed and fielding percentage