University of St. Thomas Athletics
Baseball falls one win short with 6-3 defeat to Cards
5/22/2021 5:32:00 PM | Baseball
Small ball served St. Thomas pretty well throughout its 2021 run to the MIAC regular-season title and No. 1 seeding in the Midwest Region.
But the Toms needed more than small ball to match St. Mary's big hits that broke open Saturday night's pivotal rematch and produce a 6-3 SMU win. The Cardinals (29-14) claimed their program's first MIAC playoff championship and first NCAA tourney appearance since 1993.
SMU never trailed and used a three-run homer and three doubles to build an early 6-2 lead. Coach Chris Olean's Tommies were coming off two consecutive comeback wins in the losers' bracket but couldn't put together the third.
The Tommies had a solid five-game showing in the tournament (3-2) with 29 runs and 54 hits. But their patient, efficient attack this week produced no home runs, only one triple and seven doubles, to go with 46 singles. They still won a lot of April and May games despite hitting only one round tripper in their last 20 contests.
St. Thomas sent a group of younger arms out to try to win what was their fourth game in 32 hours. Sophomore Jake Lindsay, making his second career start, worked the opening two innings and allowed two runs. Freshman Matt Moore pitched two innings in his varsity debut and gave up one run. Redshirt freshman Jeremy Klick worked the fifth inning and gave up three runs. Freshman Kolby Gartner worked three scoreless innings to finish.
St. Thomas (29-7) will learn late Sunday night whether it receives one of the few NCAA at-large berths. The Tommies have these positives supporting their case:
- The Purple won the MIAC regular-season title, and en route won 15 of their last 17 and 26 of their last 30 games
- They finished a combined 10-3 on the season against 31-win Northwestern-St. Paul (UMAC Conference champ) and 29-win St. Mary's (MIAC playoff champ)
- They went 2-1 vs. MIAC runner-up and No. 3 ranked region team Gustavus; 2-1 against 24-win Bethel; and 2-0 against 20-win St. Scholastica
- Six of their seven losses came by three runs or less
- They rank at or near the top of Division III in ERA, runs allowed and fielding percentage
Saturday Game 1
Redshirt freshman Matthew Enck's RBI single in the top of the ninth inning broke a 5-5 tie and senior Graham Laubscher set down all seven batters he faced to close out a 6-5 St. Thomas win over St. Mary's that forced a rematch for the 2021 MIAC Baseball Playoff Championship.
Five different Toms had an RBI hit in the victory. The top-seeded Tommies (29-7) posted their second late-game comeback in as many days to stay alive. The teams play another nine-inning game Saturday at 5:50 p.m., and that winner takes the automatic berth into the NCAA playoffs.
The third-seeded Cardinals (28-14) took a 5-4 lead in the bottom of the seventh inning on Tyler O'Brien's three-run home run. It was just the second homer allowed by a St. Thomas pitcher in the last 13 games.
But the Purple tied it with Charlie Bartholomew's one-out single run in the eighth, which followed a walk to Avery Lehman and a wild pitch.
The Toms scored the eventual game-winner in the ninth as Max Moris led off with a single, was bunted to second, and scored on Enck's single.
Laubscher was pitching on one day's rest. He struck out three and didn't allow a baserunner.
Tommie redshirt freshman Tyson Stritesky allowed one run, unearned, over five innings. SMU starter Luke Gilbertson allowed just two earned runs over seven for the Cards.
