By Jim Dixon
D3sports.com

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – LaGrange dinged a shaky Trinity pitching staff for a 15-3 win sending the Tigers home to San Antonio, Texas and advancing to the bracket two championship game this evening in game ten in the D-III World Series on Sunday, June 5.

Because of weather, Game 11 and Game 12, the first championship games in each bracket, were postponed until Monday, starting at 10 a.m.

• D3baseball.com World Series Scoreboard
• World Series: Day one | Day two | Day three
• D-III World Series Record Book
• The D3baseball.com World Series Program

LaGrange needed a couple of innings to get going but once the offense was off and running, they overwhelmed the Trinity pitching staff.

"Our guys bounced back from last night," said La Grange head coach David Kelton. " Fry did an unbelievable job and set the tone. The offense really got knocked today and put crooked number on the board that helped Fry a lot. It is always pedal down and we are always in attack mode. We knew what Trinity was capable of."

"We felt real good coming in and we felt we had some momentum," said Trinity head coach Tim Scannell.  "The first inning run kinda put us on our heels even though it ended up being an even inning. Our team has faced the first inning adversity so much that it is exhausting positionally. It was kinda of a psychological thing.

LaGrange will advance to play Eastern Connecticut on Monday afternoon. Trinity (Texas) ends their season with a 1-2 record in bracket two and a 38-13 record this season.

Ethan Fry gave LaGrange 6.1 innings to let the bullpen rest. LaGrange will need to win two games on Monday to advance to Tuesday's Championship series. Photo by David Malamut d3photography.com

Both teams traded runs in the first inning. Rhett Mixon walked to open the game and moved into scoring position on a wild pitch. Four batters later, Cael Chatham singled to center to plate the games first run. In the Trinity half of the inning, MJ Metz doubled and found home on an Ezra Gore bounder up the middle.

LaGrange put up four runs in the third to take a 5-1 lead as they took advantage of three freebies, two walks and a hit batter. Joe Ruth led off with a single as he continues to add on to his NCAA Division III hits record. Chatham was hit by a pitch putting runners on first and second. in a double steal attempt, The Tigers had Ruth picked off but missed the tag in the rundown and every one was safe, one bag further along the base paths. A sacrifice fly and two hits gave the Panthers three runs and ended he day for Alex Bihn, the Trinity starter. the final run was plated after a couple of free passes by Joel Thomas, who lasted just three batters before being lifted for Corey Carter. Cater served up a groundout to first for the final out of the inning.

LaGrange added three more in the fifth and three in the sixth as they showed no sign of throwing up the stop sign on their offence. The big hit came in the sixth as Jared Aldridge led off the inning with a towering shot to left center.

As his offense was torching the Trinity pitching staff for runs, Ethan Fry was quietly holding the Trinity offense in check. Following the run scoring single in the first, Fry retired eight batters in a row before giving up his third hit of the game, a lead off single to Gore. Until running into trouble in the seventh, he kept the Tigers scoreless, allowing two base runners in 11 batters faced.

In the seventh, LaGrange and Trinity both scored a pair of runs. The Panther's runs were aided by the only error on the day for both teams. The Trinity runs spelled the end of Fry's outing. Fry took care of the lead off hitter as he grounded to short but gave up three straight hits to the subsequent batters and the second Trinity run. Instead of facing the lineup a fourth time, Kelton opted to go to his bullpen. A bases loaded walk gave the Tigers another run but that was all they will earn on the day.

LaGrange finished up with two more runs to finish the scoring. Seldom used Dustin Doucher got a pitch hit opportunity and ambushed the Trinty pitcher for his first home run of his college career.

Following the game all the bracket championship games were postponed until Monday with rain headed into Cedar Rapids. On Monday there will be 2-4 games depending on which teams win.