Chapman Loses Its First Game at Division III Nationals

It didn’t take long for Chapman to back itself into a corner at the NCAA Division III baseball championship. The Panthers dropped their opening game Friday at Fox Cities Stadium, 4-2, to Allegheny College.

It has been 15 years since a team won the title after dropping its opening game at the double-elimination tournament.

“It’s obviously a tough road when you lose the first game, but certainly not impossible,” Chapman Coach Rex Peters said. “You have to keep moving forward and try to pick up wins and survive and have a chance to be there at the end.”

Things looked good for the Panthers in the bottom of the sixth inning, when they tied the score, 2-2. Pat Stevens led off with a triple into the gap in right-center field. Two batters later, Michael Caira grounded out to shortstop, driving in the tying run.

Chapman pitcher Tim Huff had found a groove, retiring 10 batters in a row, including striking out the side in the sixth.

But Huff’s struggles early in the game caught up with him in the eighth, when the Gators scored the two decisive runs.

In the first three innings, Huff often had to work deep into the count, running up his pitch count as he labored to get hitters out. He allowed one run in the first inning and another in the third to fall behind, 2-0.

Huff was helped out in the third when right fielder Jude Chavez threw out a runner at home on a shallow single, and after that Huff started to shut down the Gators.

In the third, Chapman cut Allegheny’s lead in half, on a one-out single by Bobby Calderon that scored Alex Taylor from second. The Panthers tied it in the sixth on Caira’s RBI groundout.

But Huff (9-2), the Panthers’ ace, finally lost some steam in the eighth. Ben Couch led off with a long double to left-center. A sacrifice bunt moved Couch to third, and a sacrifice fly brought him home for the go-ahead run.

The next batter, Brad Hensler, drilled a hanging slider over the left-field wall for a home run that gave the Gators a 4-2 lead.

Allegheny pitcher Jeff Mountain, a second-team All-American, would need no more support. Chapman went down quietly in the eighth and ninth innings as Mountain finished with a six-hitter that improved his record to 10-0.

In a battle of staff aces, Huff’s few mistakes were too much for the Panthers to overcome.

“I didn’t have my good stuff today, and that was about it,” Huff said. “I struggled with my slider. But I wasn’t nervous.”

Allegheny, of Meadville, Pa., pushed across runs in the innings when it had Huff in trouble, something the Chapman batters failed to do in their rare chances against Mountain.

“It was a matter of who was going to come up with a base hit at the right time, and they did those things,” Peters said. “They took advantage of their opportunities a little more than we did.”

Chapman will give the ball to Eric Hayden today against Southern Maine as it tries to stay alive in the tournament. Hayden is 6-0 this season, and he pitched a shutout in his last appearance, a 4-0 win over Cal Lutheran in the West Regional.