July 1, 2008

Johns Hopkins had history on its side, but no one was talking about it, that's for sure. This is baseball and superstitions run wild around the diamond.

Johns Hopkins had been in this situation before, but never with the stakes so high. A year earlier the Blue Jays had dropped the first game of the 2007 Centennial Conference baseball tournament to Ursinus, only to rally with four straight victories and claim the conference championship.

Take it back even farther - 1989 to be exact. Johns Hopkins navigated its way to the NCAA Division III College World Series by coming out of the South Region. The Blue Jays of '89 placed third at the College World Series - the high water mark for a program that has seen its share of championships.

Fast forward to the 2008 NCAA South Regional and Hopkins, unfortunately, found itself in the same position as it had in the 2007 Centennial Conference Tournament. The second-seeded Blue Jays jumped to a 3-0 lead after one inning and led 5-0 after two innings against fifth-seeded Christopher Newport before the wheels started to fall off. The Captains needed four innings to draw even and eventually plated three runs in the top of the 10th to take an 8-5 decision. The Blue Jays had Christopher Newport's Kenny Moreland, a First Team ABCA All-American, on the ropes early and let him off.

There are losses and there is devastation. Clearly this fell into the latter category.

Head coach Bob Babb and his seniors called on the experience gained one year earlier, when the 6-3 loss to Ursinus was followed by one-run wins over Franklin & Marshall and Gettysburg and blowout victories over that same Ursinus team (21-4, 16-4) to win the '07 Centennial title.

Hopkins got its mojo back with a 13-8 win over a pesky Randolph-Macon team by out-scoring the Yellow Jackets 6-1 over the final three innings. The Blue Jays then pounded out 15 hits in a 13-6 win over Piedmont to set up the final day at the regional. Top-seeded Salisbury and fourth-seeded Lynchburg also advanced and each team entered the final day with one loss.

Hopkins and Lynchburg locked up in a back-and-forth affair with the right to play the Sea Gulls in the regional championship game on the line. The Hornets carried a 4-3 lead into the seventh inning, but RBI-singles by Nate Adelman and Rob Pietroforte gave the Blue Jays a 5-4 lead and Jon Solomon added a run-scoring double and later came home on an error to cap a two-run ninth to lead the Blue Jays to a 7-5 win.

The win over Lynchburg set up a winner-take-all showdown with Salisbury. The teams had been scheduled to meet in late April at Johns Hopkins, but bad weather forced a cancellation and the game was never played. Both teams spent a majority of the season ranked in the top 15 and state bragging rights and a trip to the World Series were on the line when they finally got together on Saturday, May 17.

Round one in the regional title game went to the Blue Jays as they spotted the Sea Gulls a 1-0 lead in the top of the first and responded with six runs in the bottom half of the inning. Although they stayed close for a couple innings, the Sea Gulls never fully recovered from the early assault and Hopkins cruised to a 9-4 victory.

Adelman and Brian Youchak laced RBI-triples, Matt Benchener added a run-scoring double and Solomon and senior Todd Emr added RBI-singles to fuel the six-run first. The Sea Gulls drew within 6-4 in the top of the third, but the Blue Jays answered with two runs in the bottom half of the inning and plated an insurance run in the fourth before junior Chez Angeloni took control.

Angeloni, who came on in relief in the second inning, scattered three hits over the final six innings and added four strikeouts without allowing a walk. As it would turn out, he was just getting started on a pitching run through the NCAAs that ranks among the best in Division III history.

The 9-4 win propelled the Blue Jays on a journey to Appelton, Wisconsin; site of the NCAA Division III World Series. Four days, dozens of interviews and one charter flight later, Johns Hopkins was in Wisconsin chasing the dream that had started a year earlier for most of the players. A 5-4 10-inning loss to eventual national champion Kean (NJ) in the 2007 Mid.-Atlantic Regional Championship game can easily be pointed to as the start of the 2008 season. With a majority of that team back in the fold, the Blue Jays had one goal - to reach the pinnacle of Division III baseball.

Once there, the Blue Jays became the crowd favorites as their aggressive style of play endeared them to the fans in attendance. Befitting a tournament of the eight best teams in the nation, the Blue Jays played six games that were decided by a total of just eight runs, won four, one-run games, came from behind in each of their four victories and were one strike from winning the national championship. Hopkins hooked up with Adrian (MI) in a classic pitchers' duel in its first game at the World Series before prevailing, 3-2, in 14 innings.

The Bulldogs jumped to a 2-0 lead before the Blue Jays pulled even with a pair of runs in the bottom of the sixth. An RBI-single by Emr and a sacrifice fly by senior Jonas Fester fueled the rally.

The second-longest game in NCAA Division III championship baseball history saw Adrian's Alex Webster and Hopkins' Joe Zaccaria control the action from the mound. Webster went 10 innings and allowed nine hits and just the two runs, while Zaccaria pitched the first nine innings and had a career-high 14 strikeouts before giving way to senior Ryan Kealy in the 10th.

After having a runner thrown out at the plate in the ninth inning, Adrian didn't seriously threaten again and the Blue Jays finally took the win in the 14th inning when Benchener doubled home Tony Margve, who had opened the bottom of the 14th with a single up the middle.

The Blue Jays' prize for the victory was a date with top-ranked Chapman, which entered the game with a 40-3 record. Hopkins plated single runs in the first and third innings, only to have the Panthers reach Angeloni for five straight hits and four runs in the bottom of the third to take a 4-2 lead. Chapman, which hit .345 as a team, averaged over eight runs per game and spent 10 weeks as the nation's top ranked team, never came close to scoring again and the Blue Jays took the lead for good in the fifth inning. An RBI-single by Youchak plated Adelman, who had opened the inning with a walk, and Emr poked a two-run single to left to give the Blue Jays the one-run lead they would never relinquish.

Angeloni was spectacular over the final six innings as he scattered five hits and allowed just one runner to reach second base during that stretch. He went the distance and finished with six strikeouts and didn't walk a batter to run his record to 8-0 on the year.

The Blue Jays were bounced to the loser's bracket a night later as unbeaten Trinity jumped out to a 3-0 lead at the end of one, increased the lead to 6-2 and held off a late-game rally for an 8-5 victory. With the victory the Bantams advanced to the national championship round, where they would need to be beaten twice. They were 44-0 after the 8-5 win - could they be beaten twice in one day after not losing all season?

It didn't matter to Hopkins or Babb what Trinity's record was, the Blue Jays had work to do before they could worry about the Bantams again.

Three days after the old-school 3-2 classic with Adrian, the Blue Jays hooked up with Wisconsin-Whitewater in a good old fashioned slugfest: 23 runs, 38 hits, 17 runners left on base. Five times the Blue Jays took the lead, only to have the Warhawks take the lead once and battle back to tie the other four times.

Hopkins, which led 1-0, 3-1, 6-4, 9-6 and 11-9, finally won with a single run in the bottom of the ninth when Fester laced a bases-loaded single to centerfield. In a game that saw at least one team score in each inning and multiple runs scored in six straight innings at one point, Fester's fifth hit of the game provided the difference and lifted the Blue Jays into the first national championship game in school history.

On championship day, Trinity touched Angeloni for a single run in the bottom of the first, but the Blue Jays got RBI-singles from Benchener in the second and Emr in the third to take a 2-1 lead. A two-run double by Sean Killeen in the bottom of the fifth gave the Bantams a 3-2 lead, but Benchener came through again an inning later as he singled home Margve to tie the game at 3-3.

Trinity, which hadn't blinked all year in winning its first 44 games, finally fell when the opportunistic Blue Jays scored once in the top of the ninth. Chris Huisman opened the ninth with a double down the right field line to put the pressure on Trinity pitcher Tim Kiely, a First Team ABCA All-American. Senior Isaac Katz pinch ran for Huisman and advanced to third on a sacrifice bunt. He then beat a play at the plate on a wild pitch to give the Blue Jays a 4-3 lead.

Angeloni, who struck out eight and allowed just two hits over the final four innings, put the finishing touches on his personal NCAA Tournament masterpiece by retiring the Bantams in order in the bottom of the ninth to set the stage for the 50th and final game of the 2008 Johns Hopkins baseball season.

That the Blue Jays even had a chance to win the final game says more about their grittiness and determination than anything else. A trio of Blue Jay pitchers combined to strand 14 Trinity base runners and twice the Bantams left the bases loaded.

Hopkins was more than happy to take advantage of its opportunities as Benchener answered a two-run Trinity second with a solo home run to lead off the third. That would be all the scoring until the eighth inning, when the Blue Jays grabbed a 3-2 lead on a two-run triple by Pietroforte that knocked home Adelman and Youchak. The one-run lead was short-lived as pinch hitter Matt Stafford singled home a run in the bottom of the inning before Matt Wiegand worked his away out of a bases-loaded jam.

After 49 games and eight innings, the title would be decided in the final inning. The Blue Jays moved to the brink of a national championship in the top of the ninth when Benchener's sacrifice fly scored Margve, who had opened the inning with a single and moved to third on a Solomon single. Solomon stole second just before Benchener's sacrifice, but was stranded there and the Blue Jays carried just a one-run lead into the bottom of the ninth. As it turned out, not being able to get Solomon home would come back to haunt the Blue Jays as it gave them narrowest margin of error.

Trinity sandwiched a pair of singles around a fly out and a strikeout before Chandler Barnard was intentionally walked to load the bases. Matt Sullivan then drew a bases-loaded walk to force in the tying run and Guy Gogliettino followed with a bases-loaded walk of his own to force in the winning run. Three straight walks - a slow painful death.

After coming from behind in each of their victories at the World Series, after winning six elimination games in the NCAA Tournament, after moving to within one strike of a national championship, the Blue Jays were left with silver when gold had been there for the taking.

The pain of the ending will fade for the players and coaches on the 2008 Blue Jay baseball team. After all, they did what no team in school history had ever done and nearly pulled off the improbable. The ride in May was something to behold and something none of them will ever forget.

The journey to the final game - the final at bat really - of the Division III baseball season for Johns Hopkins had started on March 4 with a 13-2 win over Messiah. The Blue Jays ran their season-opening winning streak to four games before three straight losses in Arizona (two to teams ranked in the top 30) dropped them to 4-3. A 12-7 win over Western New England jump-started a 13-game winning streak during which the Blue Jays scored 11 or more runs 10 times. An 8-5 loss at Muhlenberg in the second game of a doubleheader was the only hiccup in a 26-game span. The Blue Jays split a doubleheader with Haverford to close the regular season and the 26-2 run all but assured the Blue Jays an at-large berth in the NCAA Tournament, but the Blue Jays had their eyes on another Centennial title first.

A 9-1 win over Muhlenberg in the opening round of the Centennial Tournament and a 16-6 win over Franklin & Marshall moved the Blue Jays into the championship round, where they would meet Haverford. The Fords had come from behind to eliminate F&M and would have to beat Hopkins twice to grab the Centennial title and the league's automatic bid to the NCAAs.

The Blue Jays and Fords battled to a 1-1 tie through eight innings, but Haverford scored three runs in the top of the ninth to take what appeared to be an insurmountable 4-1 lead.

It seemed hardly possible that the end would come so quickly for the Fords. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, the Blue Jays grabbed victory from what appeared to be the locked jaws of defeat only moments earlier.

A two-run home run by Benchener drew the Blue Jays to within 4-3 and tournament MVP Dan Merzel followed two batters later with a single to right field. He then stole second and raced home with the tying run on a two-out single by Solomon, who took second on the throw to the plate. Seconds later it was a Youchak single to center that provided the difference as Solomon beat the throw to the plate to give Hopkins its ninth Centennial Conference title.

Hopkins closed the regular season with a 17-10 win over Mary Washington two days later and learned its draw in the NCAA Tournament five days after that. The losses to Christopher Newport in the NCAA opener and Trinity in the national championship game were the bookends to a magical 11-game run through the NCAA Tournament that close followers of the program will be talking about for quite some time; or at least until the next time the Blue Jays are sent to the South Region. After all, baseball is a game of superstitions.