Index of Sports Press Releases

May 2, 2008

DWU wins twice at GPAC baseball tournament
The Daily Republic

HASTINGS, Neb. — On a day filled with drama, it was the Dakota Wesleyan University baseball team always getting the big hit or making the key pitch during the first two rounds of the Great Plains Athletic Conference Baseball Championships in Hastings, Neb.

As a result, the fifth-seeded Tigers pulled off a pair of very different upsets, each by a single run, and they enter today as just one of two teams without a loss in the tournament thus far. DWU opened the day with a 1-0 win over No. 4 Midland Lutheran College, and the Tigers pulled off the stunner of the tournament when they knocked off No. 1 Northwestern, 11-10, in 10 innings.

DWU’s first-round win over MLC can be summed up in two words: Chris Baker.

“He was everything we expected him to be and more,” said Tigers’ head coach Adam Neisius. “He was absolutely dominant. Baker is by far the best pitcher in this conference and maybe the region. He had four pitches for a strike, and I don’t know if I’ve seen him with control of all four pitches like he had today. … He absolutely put us on his shoulders.”

Baker threw a complete-game shutout, allowing just six hits and two walks over seven innings while striking out 12 Midland Lutheran hitters. However, his brilliance was at its best in the fourth inning.

DWU took its 1-0 lead in the top of the inning when Sean Worley hit a double, moved to third on a fielder’s choice, and then came in to score on Zach Huston’s two-out RBI single. However, MLC came right back with a threat.

The Warriors’ No. 3 hitter led off the bottom of the fourth with a triple, and another tie seemed certain. However, Baker struck out the next three batters to leave MLC’s only hope standing on third base.

“He really locked in,” Neisius said. “When Baker struck out the side after a leadoff triple, that changed the momentum of the game.”

Neisius was a little surprised, considering the way the way both starters were throwing, that the Warriors didn’t try to bunt in the tying run.

“The way the day went and the way the pitchers were throwing, I would’ve squeezed at least twice to try to get a run in,” he said. “Sometimes you just have to give in and go, “OK, this guys is on.’ But they didn’t even attempt to bunt.”

MLC managed one last threat in the seventh when it put runners on first and third with one out, but Baker got a strikeout and a soft tapper back to the mound to end the game and secure the shutout.

DWU only managed five hits against MLC’s starter, with Huston going 2-for-3 with the team’s lone RBI. Worley was 1-for-3 with a run, Ryan Santiago was 1-for-3 and Jeff Bollard was 1-for-2.

The second game was entirely different. The Tigers and the Red Raiders engaged in a back-and-forth slugfest that DWU eventually won when Jake Roy hit his second home run of the game in the top of the 10th, and Freddy Janssen got a crucial strikeout after Northwestern had loaded the bases in the bottom of the inning.

“They were relieved, as was the coaching staff,” Neisius said of his team after the final strike was called. “It was such a see-saw battle. You really had to be careful pitching in that game and I think our kids did a good job. It was two totally different baseball games in about eight hours. I think our kids reacted very well. I think they hung in there, did well and put us in a really good situation.”

The Red Raiders’ ace also threw in the first game, so Neisius said that things set up pretty well for the Tigers to pull off the upset. Both lineups were at their best, combining for 22 runs on 24 hits with six lead changes and five ties.

“A couple people told me that was an absolute slugfest,” Neisius said. “It was a boxing match for the most part, and it came down to big hits in RBI situation and who could prevail at the end.”

DWU took a 5-1 lead with a five-run rally in the second, but a few errors led to four runs for the Red Raiders, and a 5-5 tie after two. Then Northwestern scored two runs, only to have the Tigers answer back with two of their own. Regulation ended with the score deadlocked at 8-8.

Wesleyan jumped out to a 10-8 lead in the eighth, but Janssen allowed a two-run home run in the bottom of the inning to extend the game, setting up Roy’s heroic home run and the dramatic final strike out.

Roy led the offensive outburst, going 3-for-6 with three runs, four RBI and two home runs. Josh Pritt was 3-for-5with a double, a run and two RBI and Kyle Isaacson was 2-for-5 with a double, a run and an RBI.

Phil Johnson started the game and struggled through three innings, allowing seven runs (six earned) on eight hits and three walks. Thomas Pickett pitched two perfect innings of relief, Chris Dennis allowed one run in one inning, and Janssen threw the final four frames, allowing two runs on four hits with two walks and two strikeouts while earning the win.

The Tigers open the second day of tournament play today at 9 a.m. against Morningside. Neisius said that Dennis will be on the mound, and he thinks his team will have plenty of motivation to get another win, even with the early start time.

“We did not play well at all at their place in the regular season, so we shouldn’t have trouble with motivation,” Neisius said. “Tomorrow’s game at nine pretty much gets you a pass into the championship.”

The loser of the 9 a.m. plays at 4 p.m., with the winner playing a second game at 7:30 p.m. Today’s second matchups may be adjusted mid-day so teams who played Thursday don’t meet up again today. The tournament concludes Saturday with the championship beginning at 11 a.m.

Neisius said he doesn’t have a pitching plan beyond today’s first game, although he has a number of options for today’s second game, and he said Baker will be ready to come back on Saturday.

“We’ve got arms left — we’ll be OK,” Neisius said. “Baker said he’ll be good to go for Saturday. What we tried to do early in the year and throughout the year is keep pitch counts to a minimum for right now.”