Misericordia survives a slugfest to take the upper hand in the D3 Baseball Championship
Rain got rid of the rest day for pitchers and the Cougars held on for a 12-9 win
Tuesday was planned as a day off for the two teams playing for the NCAA Division III Baseball Championship. But, Wednesday had a forecast of thunderstorms, so the tournament committee opted to move the first game up a day and leave Wednesday as a rest day.
What this meant for Tuesday is that the last two teams: Misericordia of Dallas, PA and Wisconsin-Whitewater were left scrambling for pitchers. Usually the day off allows teams to reset their rotations and have their first and second starters ready to go. And if a third game was necessary, it would be Johnny Wholestaff vs Johnny Wholestaff.
It turned out that Game One was a battle of the bullpens and Misericordia had just enough pitching, mostly from a heroic performance from closer Matt Lanzendorfer.
Whitewater started out with a 2-run first, but fell behind 10-2 after four innings as Misericordia put up five-spots in the second and fourth ininngs. Whitewater answered with a 6 run fifth inning. With two outs in the fifth, Misericordia turned to its closer, Lanzendorfer, even though he had pitched 3 1/3 innings the day before, would finish the game out for Misericordia giving up just one unearned run in 4 1/3 innings of work.
Over the last two days, Lanzendorfer has pitcher 7 2/3 innings and thrown 142 pitches. He is probably looking forward to the rest day.
The series concludes on Thursday. They will start bright and early at 8 am in Eastlake, Ohio. Misericordia just needs one win to claim its first ever national championship. If Whitewater wins the first game on Thursday, the deciding game will follow shortly after the first game’s conclusion.
Misericordia will probably start its number one pitcher, Joe Valenti, who last pitched on Monday and threw 2 1/3 innings in relief. I would guess Whitewater will start Michael Wilker, Jr., who has pitched once in Eastlake, a 2-0 complete game loss to Salve Regina on Saturday.
Whitewater should not be bothered having to win two games in one day. The Warhawks have done it twice already in the postseason. They won two games in one day against Wisconsin-La Crosse in the super-regional and they won two games against Salve Regina on Monday.
Tuesday’s attendance was listed at 189.
On the eve of the 80th anniversary of D-Day, I see you are writing about true heroes, like Matt Lanzendorfer.
189 is not a lot of spectators. You could have that many people - or more - read your write up about Game 1.
This whole series has been strangely riveting to follow, and I look forward to its concluding entry/entries later this week.