Chapman Can’t Bounce Back, Gets Eliminated

SALEM, Va. — If Chapman’s loss in the first round of the NCAA Division III baseball championship tournament Saturday defined heartbreaking, Sunday the Panthers gave new meaning to excruciating.

Wooster (Ohio) scored 10 runs in the fourth inning, taking a 16-0 lead on the way to a 19-6 victory that eliminated the Panthers in front of 325 at Salem Memorial Stadium.

Wooster, ranked second in the American Baseball Coaches Assn. poll, showed exactly how they became one of the most dangerous offensive teams in Division III. The Fighting Scots scored three in the first, one in the second and two in the third before pounding the Panthers in the fourth.

But as powerful as Wooster was, reservations for Chapman’s early return to California were essentially made late Saturday night when top-ranked North Carolina Wesleyan scored three runs with two outs in the bottom of the 13th for a 4-3 victory that knocked Chapman into the losers’ bracket.

Chapman Coach Rex Peters said Saturday he believed his team could bounce back from the painful loss in the most competitive game of the tournament thus far. But it was clear Sunday the Panthers’ had been deflated. The result was the tournament’s most lopsided loss.

“The game last night took a lot out of our kids both emotionally and physically,” Peters said. “To come back and regroup and climb a big mountain today was going to be a difficult task.

“We just didn’t have much left in the gas tank. But that’s not an excuse. They came out and knocked us around real good. They flat-out beat us.”

Dusty Martin, Chapman’s center fielder and leading hitter, said he couldn’t explain why the Panthers’ normally potent lineup--which had a .340 cumulative batting average going into the game--managed only eight hits, two in five innings against Wooster starter Drew Binkowski (8-0).

“He didn’t seem to be throwing all that hard; we just didn’t hit him,” said Martin, a junior who went one for four with an RBI single in the seventh. “I didn’t feel worn out; I had plenty left in me today. It just started out bad and got worse.”

Rain delayed Sunday’s start by 1 1/2 hours, pushing the first pitch to 15 hours after the last one Saturday. Chapman players had dragged themselves back to the hotel after that game ended at 11:29 EDT. Most ate a late dinner and went to bed by 3 a.m.

They were up before 9 a.m., hoping to begin a run back into contention. But Chapman’s normally sharp pitching staff faltered against a team that averages 10 runs per game and hit a Division III-high 99 home runs entering the tournament.

Chapman starter Jim Brewer got in trouble early, struggling with his control, and Wooster loaded the bases on a hit batter, line-drive single and a walk, scoring one on a sacrifice fly and two more on a bloop single to center.

Brewer (7-3) gave up a home run to No. 9 hitter Jim Bartlett in the second and didn’t get an out against three batters in the third, giving way to reliever Mark Mazon. Wooster scored two runs in the inning on a passed ball and a fielder’s choice, but the Scots’ bats were just warming up.

Wooster (43-7-1) sent 13 batters to the plate in the fourth, and the 12th--first-team All-American catcher Matt Jackson--hit a grand slam to make it 16-0. It was Jackson’s Division III-leading 21st home run of the season. He went four for five with six runs batted in.

Chapman (31-16), which scored a single run in the fifth, broke through after a fashion in the seventh, scoring five runs. Cale Shepherd capped the inning with a tape-measure home run to dead center. The hit--estimated to have traveled 430 feet--easily cleared the 20-foot high wall and made it 19-6.

But it was merely a small consolation for Shepherd, a senior who finished the season with 10 home runs.

“In a different situation it would have been a tremendous hit,” Shepherd said. “But when you are down 19-1 or whatever it was at the time, I was thinking, ‘Just get around the bases and get back in the dugout.’ ”