VANCOUVER – Miles Bigelow struck out Austen Butler with the tying runner at second base to lift the College of Idaho to a thrilling 2-1 victory over the UBC Thunderbirds in the championship game of the NAIA West Grouping North Division Championships at Thunderbird Park.
The victory clinches the Coyotes (24-28) an automatic bid to the NAIA Baseball National Championship Opening Round for a second-straight year and C of I's eighth overall trip to Nationals. C of I will travel to one of nine Opening Round sites for games May 15-18 – learning their destination and opponents on Thursday. It marks the Coyotes first title since winning the 2002 NAIA Region I championship at Simplot Stadium over the same UBC team. C of I also claimed the 2012 NAIA Opening Round Azusa Bracket title en route to their most recent trip to the NAIA World Series.
For the third time this weekend, the T-Birds got a solid pitching performance from their starter as Niall Windeler went the distance but UBC’s bats were unable to come through with timely hits.
“I thought we had more scoring chances but just couldn’t get them home,” said UBC head coach Chris Pritchett following the difficult loss. “The way our guys played, the effort level, the intensity was just off the charts. It just makes it that much harder when you lose and obviously for the seniors it was their last games. No one wanted to end this fast or this way but that’s the game.”
The ‘Birds had nine hits in the game but ended up stranding a total of nine base runners.
Anthony Martine also pitched a gem for C of I as both he and Windeler had a scoreless game going into the fourth. The ‘Yotes were able to break through when Cole Mansanarez hit an RBI single to right centre scoring Dalton Ridgway from second.
The ‘Birds looked to respond in the bottom half of the fourth when Mackenzie Parlow hammered the ball to center field for a two-out single but was caught stealing second to end the inning.
In the bottom of the fifth, Anthony Cusati got behind the ball on a full count and sent it flying over the left field fence for a solo home run to tie the game at one getting the ‘Birds bench and the crowd hopping.
The ‘Yotes re-took the lead in the top of the sixth, however, on a Dominic Conigliaro sacrifice fly that got Ridgway across the plate for the second time for what turned out to be the championship-winning run.
Down to their last out of the eighth inning, Parlow reached first after his infield pop up dropped getting Tyler Yorko to third but Martine then got John Whaley to line out ending the threat and keeping the visitors’ lead intact.
Facing the end of their season, the ‘Birds got a lead-off walk by Cusati in the bottom of the ninth while the ‘Yotes then brought in Miles Bigelow to close. Justin Orton proceeded to lay down a two-strike sacrifice bunt to advance pinch runner Anthony Olson to second base. Kyle McComb fouled out with UBC down to their final out and Butler up to bat but the outfielder struck out as the ‘Yotes went a perfect 3-0 - and surrendered just two runs over the course of the tournament - to advance to the NAIA championship opening round.
“We pitched very well,” said College of Idaho head coach Shawn Humberger. “We got a good close out of Miles there and took advantage of a couple lead off walks and got a couple runs across the board that turned out to be all we needed.”
Windeler was tagged with the loss but not due to his performance that saw the rookie allow just two runs on two hits while striking out nine in his first nine-inning complete game of the season.
“One thing this group can be proud of is their leadership, the way they went about their business is going to leave their mark,” said Pritchett, who once again praised his graduating seniors.
“They’re building something here that will always be moving forward thanks to them. We’ll meet and we’ll continue to move this program in the right direction and that’s also thanks to an unbelievable coaching staff that I get the luxury of coming to work with on a daily basis. But also the way these kids play and daily with their work ethic.”
- with files from Mike Safford (College of Idaho)