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Comeback falls short for Tigers
Roger's Landing boat races kick off summer
season
Newberg baseball team off to a good start
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Bruins No. 1 |
The baseball team defeats East Connecticut State in
the second game of the finals Tuesday |
By B. Scott Anderson, Newberg
Graphic sports editor
E-mail Scott at banderson@eaglenewspapers.com
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APPLETON, Wis. - George Fox University is the top Division III
baseball squad in the nation.
The Bruins needed to win one of two games against Eastern
Connecticut State to capture the title and got it when it defeated
the Warriors 6-3 Tuesday afternoon. The Bruins third game against
Connecticut was precipitated by a 12-7 loss to the Warriors earlier
in the day.
The Bruins reached the World Series tournament by way of a
Northwest Conference at-large berth and by winning the west regional
title in California the week prior.
The title game saw a match-up of first team All-American pitchers
Scott Hyde of George Fox and Ryan DiPietro of Eastern Connecticut.
Each had a complete-game victory on the first day of the tournament,
then worked two innings and got wins in relief Monday.
In the finale, it was simply a question of which ace could hang on
the longest. Hyde went the distance to notch the win and end the
season with a 14-1 record. He scattered five hits, struck out 13 and
walked two in what will likely be his last college game as he is
expected to be taken in the Major League draft Monday.
Hyde wasn’t expected to start for the Bruins. When GFU coach Pat
Bailey saw that DiPietro was to be the starter for Eastern
Connecticut, he thought the best idea was to put Hyde in to replace
expected starter Zach Wilson.
“I was shocked,” Bailey said when he saw that DiPietro was going to
start. “I figured (EC coach Bill Holowati) would start
somebody else and have DiPietro come in for relief, like we were
going to do for Scott.”
Hyde ended the year with 191 strikeouts, the second-best total in a
single season in D-III history, and raised his career total to 395,
the third-most ever at the D-III level.
George Fox struck first in the final game in the top of the second
inning. Greg Dombek dropped a one-out single into right and
scored on Derrick Jones’ double off the fence in right. Jones then
scored when shortstop Tom Koch threw away Tye Tinner’s slow roller
to short.
The Warriors tied it in the bottom half as Marc Garofalo singled to
center with one out and scored on a triple by Randy Re; Re scored on
Zach Mehrbach’s sacrifice fly to center.
The Bruins regained the lead in the third as Stephen Donohue
singled up the middle, moved up on a sacrifice and a passed ball,
and scored on Greg Dombek’s two-out single through the left side.
The Warriors’ Dwight Wildman slugged his fourth home run of the
tournament in the bottom half to knot the score again. DiPietro
finally ran out of gas as the Bruins scored twice in the fourth,
pinning him with his first loss after 11 wins.
Hyde was 3-0 in the tournament, with 30 strikeouts in 20 innings
and was named the outstanding player of the series. Joining him on
the All- Tournament Team were second baseman Braniff,
shortstop Peterson, third baseman Tinner and catcher Dombek.
In the third inning when it was tied 3-3, Bailey said Hyde told him
he could probably throw one more inning. But then the Eastern
Connecticut bench began attempting to distract Hyde. It didn’t work.
Hyde caught fire, retiring 14 batters in a row at one point.
“I think it got (Hyde’s) competitive spirit kicked in and he just
got after it,” Bailey said.
Bailey said he didn’t intend to have Hyde work the entire game.
“I didn’t want him to hurt his arm and that was my No. 1 concern,”
he said. “He has a very fluid motion and he said his arm felt
good and thought he could finish it. The last three innings, I was
more worried about (Hyde) than winning the game because he has a
future. A world series championship is not worth one of my guys
getting hurt.”
The key, Bailey said, was that even though pitchers in college
baseball throw on seven days’ rest, Hyde regimented workout routine
allowed him to continue.
“I think since he keeps himself in good shape, he was able to do
it,” Bailey said.
With a college World Series under their belts, the Bruins were
ecstatic.
“It was an amazing experience,” Bailey said. “The most important
thing to me is not so much that we won but it was that people at the
motel and the people at the tournament told us that we were the
classiest team at the tournament. We even had the umpires tell (us)
that they wanted us to win it because of the way we are and that’s
the ultimate compliment to our program.”
George Fox ended the season with a 40-10 record, while Eastern
Connecticut was 43-11, losing out in the championship game for the
first time in five appearances. The Bruins won 17 of their last 19
games, beat nationally-ranked teams in their final nine wins, and
posted four wins in the World Series against pitchers who were first
or second team All-Americans.
Notes: Five players on the Bruins hit better than .400 at
the tournament: Greg Dombek (.519), Tye Tinner (.471), Derrick Jones
(.438), David Peterson (.423) and C.R. Braniff (.417). The team’s
batting average in the tournament was .355. For the season, the
team’s batting average was .341, the second-best all-time at GFU.
Hyde pitched 20 innings and struck out 30 of the 69 batters he
faced for an ERA of 3.15; opponents hit .159 against him. Dixon went
1-0 with a 2.84 ERA. He pitched a complete game and struck out 13
and didn’t give up a walk.
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From
June 5,
2004, Newberg Graphic
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