‘Baseball miracle’: D-III crew stays alive in WS

EASTLAKE, Ohio — The crew with no faculty will not give up.

Birmingham-Southern remains to be swinging.

Now enjoying regardless of the college being closed for good, the Panthers saved their hopes of profitable a nationwide championship alive Saturday evening with an exhilarating 9-7 comeback victory over Randolph-Macon within the Division III World Sequence.

Jackson Webster hit a two-run, walk-off homer within the ninth inning to offer Birmingham-Southern, a crew that has rapidly captured the eye of sports activities followers throughout the nation with its feel-good story, a win bordering on surreal.

“Baseball miracle, proper?” Webster stated. “The storybook is not completed.”

The Panthers squandered a 4-0 lead and fell behind 7-4 earlier than scoring three runs within the eighth — getting back-to-back RBI singles by pinch hitters within the rally — to tie it.

Then got here the ninth and a second seemingly extracted from a Hollywood script or Disney film.

Andrew Dutton walked main off earlier than Webster, who hit a two-run homer within the first, took an unsightly swing on the primary pitch. It was so unhealthy and out of character that he stepped out of the batter’s field and tapped his chest whereas apologizing to teach Jan Weisberg.

Webster did not miss the following pitch.

Connecting on a dangling curveball, he despatched his homer over the wall in left area to set off a wild celebration on the sphere and within the stands of Basic Park.

As he rounded third and was greeted on the plate by his delirious teammates, a rowdy group of Sigma Chi fraternity brothers from the college who had saved the religion when issues regarded bleak danced within the aisles.

It was one other memorable second in a season filled with them for Birmingham-Southern and a crew bonded by adversity.

“Simply true grit,” stated Weisberg, whose seventeenth season on the faculty has offered challenges he may have by no means imagined. “The battle in these guys is the story of the evening.”

Birmingham-Southern, which misplaced the nationwide title sport in 2019, superior within the double-elimination tourney and can play Wisconsin-Whitewater on Sunday.

Primarily based on the wild scene outdoors its constitution buses, it is perhaps robust for anybody from Birmingham-Southern to get a lot sleep.

After shedding the opener to Salve Regina on Friday, the identical day Birmingham-Southern formally closed its doorways for the primary time since 1856 as a consequence of monetary hardship, the Panthers have been going through a win-or-extinction state of affairs to maintain their season — and the college’s legacy — going.

Not like Friday’s sport, after they fell behind 7-0 earlier than rallying, the Panthers jumped to a 3-0 lead within the first on Webster’s two-run homer and Charlie Banks’ solo shot — each balls thudding off an indication past the left-center area wall promoting a free automotive wash for Lake County Captains followers.

However Randolph-Macon caught them within the seventh after which took the lead with three runs within the eighth, when the Panthers had two wild pitches and issues started to unravel to the purpose the place it regarded like Birmingham-Southern’s season and program have been each over.

Weisberg thought the more severe.

“You possibly can’t assist however have the sensation of — is that this how it is going to finish?” he stated. “However with all this crew has been by means of particularly, with all that we have had hanging over our heads, I am going to admit it occurred to me for a short second in between innings.

“I began excited about what am I going to say? Am I going to maintain it collectively? And I instructed myself, cease, simply cease.”

There is no margin for error, however the Panthers have not felt any strain for months. That is simple after what they have been by means of. As soon as the college’s choice was made, BSC’s gamers made their very own choice to complete robust.

Beneath Weisberg’s steadying steering, Birmingham-Southern’s boys of summer season have been enjoying freely for months, unburdened between the foul traces after studying in late March their faculty was closing.

Baseball has pulled them collectively and pulled them by means of what some throughout the crew have described as like shedding a member of the family.

It has been an emotional journey for Birmingham-Southern gamers, dad and mom, alums, school and everybody with any ties to the liberal arts school for the reason that announcement in March {that a} $30 million mortgage from the state of Alabama wasn’t coming and closure was vital.

“At first, there was a number of disappointment,” stated Cole Steadman, one among a number of gamers on the 2019 crew who got here to root on this particular version of Panthers. “We have been fairly devastated to listen to that the college was shutting down, however to see the neighborhood come collectively has been particular.”