By DOUG IRELAND, Journal Sports
LEWISTON, Idaho – Had the magic spell that confounded opponents all season faded at just the wrong time Friday night for the undefeated LSUS Pilots?
After making early leads routine, No. 1 LSUS landed on the wrong side of a four-run margin before getting to hit for the second time in Friday night’s NAIA World Series championship round game with sixth-seeded Southeastern (Fla.).
But it was not uncharted territory for the Pilots. And they handled it just as well as they did a couple times early this season, bouncing back quickly within a run, battling through three lead changes in the next five innings, and finishing with a flourish to record a 13-7 triumph over the Fire and capture the highly-accomplished program’s first national championship.
“It’s unbelievable. It’s hard to comprehend,” said sixth-year coach Brad Neffendorf. “It’s 35 years in the making. It’s one of the most historic programs that did not have a national title. This is a program title. There’s a lot of really good teams, a lot of really good players, a lot of really good coaching staffs that helped pave the way for us to be in this position.
“Our guys did something unbelievably incredible this year,” he said.
Back-to-back solo home runs by Jackson Syring and Ian Montz put LSUS on top for good and opened a four-run sixth inning capped by RBIs from Ryan Davenport and Austin Gomm for a 10-7 advantage. The champions scored eight runs in their last four at-bats while reliever Kenneth Schlecter retired 10 straight Southeastern hitters as the Fire went scoreless after the top of the fifth.
Staff ace Isaac Rohde came out of the bullpen to rapidly record the game’s final three outs.
Their final 59-0 record leaves the Pilots as the first college baseball team at any level to finish unbeaten.
The 4-0 deficit going to the bottom of the second was the biggest LSUS faced all season, but they’d been there twice before – down four against 17th-ranked Indiana Southwest (but winning 12-5) and vs. No. 22 Tabor (rallying to a 8-7 victory).
Friday night was only the 18th time this season the Pilots trailed. In trademark fashion, they responded right away, with a three-run second, two scoring on Jose Sallorin’s bouncing base hit up the middle and the third on a wild pitch.
An inning later, LSUS went ahead when Diego Aragon and Davenport drew bases-loaded walks. But Southeastern, stinging from a 10-0 loss to the Pilots two nights earlier, regained the advantage with a two-run fourth and added another run in its next at-bat for a 7-5 lead going to the LSUS half of the fifth. Aragon led off with a triple and pinch-runner Cooper Huspen scored on a Davenport groundout to tighten the spread to one.
Then in the sixth, the Pilots launched their big inning and began to extinguish the Fire. The three-run lead got cushioned by a seventh-inning RBI single from Sallorin, and two more runs in the eighth on a double by Josh Gibson and Syring’s sacrifice fly scoring Gibson.
Sallorin had two hits and three RBI. Davenport also drove in three and each drew three walks. Gibson and Syring contributed a pair of hits apiece as the Pilots scored in double digits for the third straight game while collecting 11 walks accompanying 11 hits.
Contact Doug at sbjdoug@gmail.com