After 17 games over six days, Misericordia survives as the champion of D3 baseball
In a championship that had the most possible games played, Misericordia outlasted Wisconsin-Whitewater for its first NCAA championship in any sport
Misericordia University of Dallas, PA, won its first ever NCAA title in any sport, after outlasting Wisconsin-Whitewater in the final game of the Division III Baseball Championship in Eastlake, Ohio.
The most games any one team can play in this tournament is eight and both teams today needed to play their eighth games to come up with a champion. In the ultimate game of the tournament, the Cougars poured on the runs early and came away with a decisive 10-5 win over the Warhawks.
Misericordia had won the first game of the best of three series on Tuesday, a game hastily rescheduled and moved up a day to avoid thunderstorms on Wednesday. Whitewater would need two wins to win the championship, while Misericordia just needed one.
In the first game, which started at 8 am Pacific Time (relevant to people who live in that time zone and follow the Division 3 baseball tournament), Whitewater jumped out to an 11-1 lead before Misericordia started to make a bit of a comeback. However, with the big lead, neither team was going to use up their best pitchers. The Cougars made a bit of a comeback but that just made the final score more cosmetically appealing, 16-10 Whitewater.
A third game of the series started 50 minutes after the ending of the first one. Both coaches scrambled around to see who could pitch. Misericordia started Connor Maryniak, who is normally the team’s starting shortstop and cleanup hitter, but he’s also a pretty good pitcher. This is not a rare Shohei Ohtani thing and it’s not uncommon in college baseball for there to be successufl two way players. Whitewater started senior Cade Berendt.
After the Warhawks went down in order in the first, Misericordia went right to work, scoring seven times in the bottom of the first, chasing Berendt and sending Whitewater into a gamelong scramble for fresh arms. Whitewater’s third pitcher, Max Huseboe, eventually stopped the bleeding, but by the sixth it was 10-2 Cougars.
Maryniak eventually gave way to closer Matt Lanzendorfer after Whitewater crept to a 10-5 margin. But that was how it would end. Misericordia was bringing back an NCAA trophy to Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. The Cougars became the first team from the Keystone State to win a D3 baseball championship1 and the first Catholic school to win the championship since St. Thomas of Minnesota2 did in 2009.
Misericordia outfielder and leadoff man Garrett McIllheney, a graduate student at the school using his COVID year of eligibility, was the tournament MVP with 10 hits in 33 at bats. He also stole six bases. McIllheney was hit by pitches 30 times in just 55 games this year. He’s listed at just 5’5” and is not likely to get drafted into organized baseball, but he got a nice sendoff.
Luzerne County, where the college is located, is not in one of the more glamorous spots of Pennsylvania. The area used to be a big coal mining location, but that has fallen off and the local economy has spent much of the 21st Century trying to retool. Right now, putting stuff in warehouses is the area’s biggest economic sector.
One problem with winning a baseball championship in college sports is that nearly every college has finished for the year when the season ends. Misericordia’s commencement was on May 11. But it’s still quite the accomplishment for a school that was not expected to be a championship contended this year and played a 1980s style of baseball with getting runners on base in any form and then stealing and sacrificing a lot.
West Chester State has won D2 championships. No Pennsylvania school has won the D1 College World Series, although Penn State was the runner up in 1957.
They are nicknamed the Tommies. There is another St. Thomas University in Miami. They are named after different St. Thomases.