University of St. Thomas Athletics
40-8
Marietta
44-8
Gritty Thomas fuels Baseball Sun. win with arm, bat
5/27/2012 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
By DOUG HENNES
APPLETON, Wis. -- Brian Brewer may have had the best description of Dylan Thomas' pitching performance in leading St. Thomas over Brewer's Marietta Pioneers 3-1 Sunday night in the NCAA Division III World Series:
"Gutsy."
Brewer shook his head in the post-game news conference and repeated the word.
"He was fantastic," said the coach who led Marietta to national titles in 2006 and last year. "He has guts. ... and we tip our cap to him."
St. Thomas Coach Chris Olean called Brewer's assessment "very accurate" and credited Thomas with battling through bases-loaded jams in the fifth and ninth innings but giving up only one run. "That's why I left him in there. I knew he could get the job done."
"Job done" means St. Thomas (40-8) advances to meet Wheaton College of Massachusetts at 4:30 p.m. Monday in the winners' bracket of the double-elimination tournament. The Tommies are assured of a top- four finish even if they lose their next two games.
"Job done" means a complete-game performance for Thomas against the No. 1-ranked team in the country: nine innings, 149 pitches (98 strikes and 51 balls) and seven strike outs, including two to end the game with the bases loaded. Thomas won his eighth straight game - and notched his fifth complete game - to improve to 8-2 and lower his ERA to 2.25.
And "job done" means Thomas helped his own cause with an RBI single in the seventh, boosting the Tommies' lead to 3-1 and giving him a little wiggle room for the finish.
"I love it! It's what I wanted," Thomas replied when asked if he was surprised Olean left him in the game so long. "You want to finish what you started. I felt great out there and I still feel great."
Thomas said while it was satisfying to beat the defending national champion, his mindset while pitching had to be that "it was just another game." The best thing about the experience, he added, "was just to be out on the mound."
Marietta came into the tournament boasting a .331 team batting average, with its top six batters hitting .356 or higher, but Thomas held the Pioneers to seven hits (.225) while giving up four walks and hitting a batter. He faced the minimum 12 batters in the first four innings, when he struck out four and allowed only one Pioneer to reach base (on a throwing error).
The Tommies took a 2-0 lead in the third. Jon Kinsel had an infield single and moved to second on Justin Novak's sacrifice bunt. Jack Hogan knocked in Kinsel with a single, and Charles Bruchu followed with an RBI triple into the right-field corner.
"I hit a fastball," Bruchu said. "He (Marietta starter Brian Gasser) was throwing a lot of stuff off the corners, and I went with the pitch - I just tried to slap it down the line."
Marietta nicked Thomas for a run in the fifth. He loaded the bases with a one-out single, walk and single, and gave up a two-out walk to force in a run. He went to a 3-2 count on Kirby Becker, a .356 hitter who had a tournament record-tying five hits on Friday night, but Becker grounded to second to end the threat. He finished 0-for-5 and stranded six runners.
Thomas had another close call in the sixth. Tim Saunders, the Pioneers' leading hitter at .438, singled with one out. Successful on 41 of 46 stealing attempts this season, including 27 straight coming into the tournament, Saunders took off for second but was gunned down by J.D. Dorgan's perfect throw to Kinsel.
"I knew he had stolen a lot of bases," Dorgan said. "Jon had a nice scoop on the throw and tagged him. I knew if I threw it on line that Jon would get the tag."
Marietta threatened again in the seventh. With one out and Mitch Geers at second, first baseman Dan Reichert and second baseman Novak collided on a high-hop grounder between the bags and the ball dropped near them. Geers tried to score from second but was thrown out by an alert Thomas.
Olean said Reichert and Thomas both were out of position on the play - Reichert should have been covering first all along and Thomas should have moved to cover first when he saw Novak and Reichert both go for the ball.
"The ball popped out and landed five feet away," Thomas said. "I saw him (Geers) out of the corner of my eye heading for home, so I picked up the ball and fired it home."
Hogan led off the St. Thomas seventh with a double off the leftfield wall. Two batters later, Thomas ripped a single to center to score Hogan and boost the lead to 3-1.
Thomas cruised through the eighth on a walk and three ground outs but ran into trouble in the ninth when he gave up a walk and a single. Bruchu made a sprinting catch of a popped-up bunt for the first out but another single loaded the bases. Thomas struck out a pinch hitter and then Becker to end the game.
Tommie Notes
• St. Thomas holds a 3-1 edge over Marietta in Division III World Series games. Behind Olean's 10-strikeout complete game, the Tommies defeated Mariettta and its 18-game winner Dave Bradley 4-1 in the 1999 tournament opener in Salem, Va. In the 2001 tournament in Appleton, St. Thomas lost 8-6 to the Pioneers but defeated them 8-4 the next day for the championship.
• The Tommies have allowed two or less runs in 25 of their 40 wins this season, and the pitching staff has a 2.91 ERA.
• In his last 11 appearances, Thomas is 8-0 with an 0.98 ERA.
• This is the third 40-win season in Tommie baseball history. UST won 42 games in 1999 in a national runner-up finish in Olean's senior year, and won 41 games with its 2009 NCAA title team...
• Charles Bruchu ran his hitting streak to 12 games, and has 22 hits in 11 postseason games. Dan Reichert had an 11-game hitting streak halted...
• May 25 NCAA.com Video Highlights vs. C. Newport (click on link and click on triangle to watch video story):
http://www.ncaa.com/news/baseball/article/2012-05-25/tommies-drop-christopher-newport
• May 27 NCAA.com Video Highlights vs. Marietta (click on link and click on triangle to watch video story):
http://www.ncaa.com/news/baseball/article/2012-05-27/st-thomas-minn-downs-marietta
Click here for box score:
Team Stats
Pitching:
W: Dylan Thomas (8-2)
L: Brian Gasser (10-4)
Batting:
RBI: Bryan Gregorich 1
SH: Evan Brockmeier 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Mitch Geers 1
CS: Tim Saunders 1
HBP: Niko Stanislav 1
Batting:
2B: Jack Hogan 1 ; N. Reichert 1
3B: Charles Bruchu 1
RBI: Jack Hogan 1 ; Charles Bruchu 1 ; Dylan Thomas 1
SH: Justin Novak 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Jack Hogan 2 ; Jon Kinsel 1
SB: Tim Kuzniar 1
