Chapman Loses in 13th, 4-3

SALEM, Va. — The Chapman baseball team did so much Saturday against top-ranked North Carolina Wesleyan, but afterward the Panthers had to dwell on the one thing they didn’t do.

They didn’t win.

Despite taking a two-run lead in the top of the 13th inning of their first-round NCAA Division III Championship tournament game, the Panthers couldn’t finish it. Wesleyan scored three in the bottom of the inning for a 4-3 victory in front of what remained of a Salem Stadium crowd of 969 at 11:30 p.m.

Two Wesleyan hits to right--Barry Blake’s two-run double and Darryl Drenth’s one-run single--nullified a night of accomplishment for Chapman, which was bounced into the losers’ bracket of the eight-team, double-elimination tournament. They will play Wooster at 10 a.m. (PDT) today in an elimination game.

The Panthers had stood their ground against one of the top pitchers in Division III, first-team All-American Mike Abbruzzese.

Going into the game, Abbruzzese, a right-hander, had a 1.08 earned-run average with an average of nearly 12 strikeouts per nine innings. Saturday, he had 18 in 12 innings, tying the NCAA tournament record. He gave up only seven hits and one run--the tying run in the ninth on a line-drive single by Luis Garcia.

“The kid’s a stud,” Chapman Coach Rex Peters said. “For us to be even in that game and for us to find a way to have a chance to win it is incredible. He was a buzz saw.”

But Chapman did make it quite a pitching duel. Panther starter Josh LaRocca matched Abbruzzese for eight innings, and Panther reliever Cale Shepherd picked up the slack for four more. LaRocca gave up only six hits through eight innings and was pulled after Wesleyan started the ninth with a single and a double.

Shepherd pitched out of the jam, giving himself the chance in the 13th to double to right off Wesleyan reliever Scott Tharrington and drive in the go-ahead run. Shepherd, a senior from El Modena High, then scored on Robert O’Brien’s double down the third-base line.

At that point, as the game neared the 3 1/2-hour mark, it seemed like a sure victory for the Panthers. But with runners on first and second in the bottom of the inning against reliever Raul Guzman, Wesleyan got a break.

Scott Robeson hit a towering pop fly to the right of the mound. Guzman pointed to O’Brien, the first baseman, but the ball fell behind him. At first it wasn’t clear whether the infield fly rule had been called and in the confusion, the runners advanced to second and third, Scott Forbes sliding into third without a tag from Jason Moeller, who apparently thought it was a force play.

Peters said home-plate umpire Steve Partington said he called the infield fly rule. “I didn’t hear it, but that ball still should have been caught,” Peters said.

The next batter, Blake, who in the ninth struck out looking on a 3-2 pitch by Shepherd, drove in two runs with a double to right. Blake moved to third on a wild pitch and scored when Drenth hit a low line drive to right. Right fielder Mike Konkol charged and dove but the ball bounced just under his glove and past him.

Konkol lay with his face buried in the grass for nearly a minute. LaRocca summed up how Konkol and the rest of the Panthers felt: “It’s heartbreaking when you battle back and then basically give it away.”