W&J staves off elimination, wins PAC title
Washington & Jefferson celebrates its PAC title win after beating Grove City at Ross Memorial Park Saturday afternoon.
While the 18 innings that took place Saturday afternoon and into the early evening hours didn’t come as a surprise to many, it reaffirmed to Washington & Jefferson College baseball coach Jeff Mountain that his senior-laden team keeps the peaks and valleys of the long season pretty comparable.
Throwing his glove to the ground after striking out the final batter, pitcher Tim Mulvey was stormed by his W&J teammates to celebrate an 8-1 victory over Grove City, 8-1, in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference championship game at Ross Memorial Park.
It was the same score W&J defeated Grove City by earlier in the day to reach the final of this double-elimination tournament.
“W&J was the best team from the first game to the last game,” Grove City coach Matt Royer said. “Everyone knows that. They have every phase. They can pitch, hit, run and are extremely athletic. I don’t think the end result is any surprise to anyone who knows about our league.”
The Presidents await their seeding for the NCAA Division III tournament later tonight and will host the Mideast Regional at Ross Memorial Park starting Thursday.
A loss earlier in the tournament to Grove City forced the Presidents to go the long, seemingly challenging way to claim its third title in the last five years. It didn’t appear to have any effect on the atmosphere of their loose dugout.
W&J (34-10) captured the 11th title in program history after surviving the three elimination games – one to knock last year’s champion Thomas More and two against Grove City – and outscoring them, 26-3.
“We are very resilient,” Mountain said of suffering a loss 6-4 loss to Grove City Friday afternoon to force the Presidents to earn the title through the losers’ bracket. “Being veteran dominated helps when you face that adversity. To have guys who have been through it, there isn’t much of a sense of panic. I think it showed because we played best when our backs were against the wall.”
At the bottom of the celebration pile, Mulvey capped a strong pitching performance from the W&J staff that limited the Wolverines to two runs on seven hits in the 18 innings.
Mulvey’s 54th career appearance set a program record and also completed a Presidents’ comeback after Grove City took a 1-0 lead when Matt Dayton brought home Travis Auth in the second inning after he reached on a triple to center field.
“It’s an honor just to be mentioned at the top of that list,” Mulvey said. “At the end of the day, it was about just getting the win and the championship. It was tough to rally last night but this is a strong, veteran group. We expect to be in these situations and know we are capable of winning these games. It was a matter of coming out and executing.”
Mulvey, along with winning pitcher Riley Groves and relievers Matt Heslin and Will Bowser, were able to get help when the heart of W&J’s lineup put the Grove City outfielders against the wall to admire towering home runs.
Derek Helbing’s solo shot in the top of the fifth inning was followed by a towering home run by Nick Vento over the batting cages beyond the left-field fence to put the Presidents up 8-1 in the seventh inning.
“What hurt was we got a ton of rain up north and had to get the last game against Waynesburg, which was pushed back to Monday, and allowed us to just get into the tournament,” Royer said. “We were throwing guys on short rest. I don’t think it would have changed the outcome because W&J is just that good.”
W&J was able to force the normally termed ‘if necessary’ game against Grove City (19-19) after scoring at least one run in six of the eight times the Presidents came to bat in the first game. After a three-run third inning where the Presidents used small ball and infield hits to build its lead, starter Santino Platt kept the lead and earned the win by spreading out four hits over his 8 1/3 innings.
Vento led W&J with a combined six hits and five RBI over the two contests, and Helbing collected four RBI.
“I think it depended on some things based on how other conference tournaments went,” Mountain said about the Presidents chances of making the NCAA tournament if they lost. “I was talking to our guys and out of all of this what we did was put ourselves in a position that if we lost (Saturday), I think we would have at least been in the conversation. Now, I think we will be a three, four or five seed.”