Chapman Turns Out the Lights

The lights went out on Southwestern University Thursday night, and that loss of power may have provided the spark that the Chapman baseball team needed.

Following a 26-minute blackout that interrupted a seventh-inning rally by host Southwestern, the Panthers rallied for an 8-4 victory in a first-round game of the NCAA Division III West Regional.

After sailing along with a 3-0 lead behind the no-hit pitching of Tim Huff through six innings, Chapman was clearly in shock in the bottom of the seventh, when Southwestern rallied for a 3-3 tie.

First, Matt Gelotti, Southwestern’s All-American center fielder, hit his 14th home run of the season, a towering drive to left-center field.

Southwestern then loaded the bases and tied the score on a pair of walks by freshman reliever Garrett Shrouds.

Shrouds was replaced by Clint Blevins, and with a 2-1 count on Jeff Taylor, the lights went out. City workers on a nearby street, unaware that the game was in progress, shut off a grid supplying power to a portion of the Southwestern campus.

When play resumed, Blevins got Taylor to pop out to first baseman Michael Caira to end the inning.

“We just got together as a team when the lights went out and talked about what we had to do when the lights came back on,” said Caira, who had three hits and drove in four runs. “Any time you have a break in the action, if anything, I think it got them off [balance] and allowed us to regroup, kind of like a timeout in football.”

“We died after that,” said Southwestern Coach Jimmy Mallon. “We had a lot of momentum at that point and then we lost it. It was a freaky thing.”

The Panthers took full advantage, parlaying a two-out error in the eighth by Southwestern first baseman Bryan Jones into three unearned runs, sparked by Eric Albright’s run-scoring double. After Southwestern cut the margin to 6-4 with a run in the bottom of the inning, Chapman put the game away with two runs in the ninth.

Chapman took its 3-0 lead in the first inning. Caira drove in the first two runs with a two-out double, then scored on Jude Chavez’s single.

The Panthers face Cal Lutheran at 9 a.m. today in the second round. The winner advances to Saturday’s championship round. The loser plays again at 5 p.m. today in the double-elimination format.