Shenandoah's dream season ends at College World Series

Jason Galleske -- sports@nvdaily.com

GRAND CHUTE, Wis. -- Shenandoah University defied the odds all season.

A trip to the Division 3 World Series was an unlikely accomplishment. So were the chances of coming back from a five-run deficit to start the bottom of the fifth inning.

The Hornets, however, battled back as they have been wont to do to tie the score, only to see their magical run through the NCAA tournament come to an end on an 11th inning home run. Carthage's Mike Hughes hit the decisive homer in the top half of the inning, handing Shenandoah a 9-8 loss in an elimination game on Sunday.

Shenandoah had dropped to the loser's bracket after falling to St. Thomas on Saturday in the winner's bracket semifinals. That set the stage for Sunday's win-or-go-home matchup with Carthage.

"We were down early," Shenandoah coach Kevin Anderson said. "The kids kept on battling and we had opportunities to win it."

Shenandoah concluded its season with a school records 38 wins against 10 losses, and a 1-2 record at the World Series gave the Hornets a fifth-place finish in the nation. SU was 20-20 a year ago.

"I couldn't imagine us being here at the beginning of the year to tell you the truth," Hornets sophomore Greg Van Sickler said. "We came off of just an average season last year. To just imagine where this little club has gone is just unbelievable. Granted I feel like absolute crap right now, but I had an absolute blast the entire ride from February 14 all the way to here."

Shenandoah pitcher Gage Levac retired the first two Red Men batters in the 11th and was ahead on Hughes with a 1-2 count. But Hughes, Carthage's cleanup hitter, cracked the next pitch over the left field fence for the decisive blow.

"At that point, I was just looking to get a hit," Hughes said. "I was having a tough tournament, it gets aggravating. He just threw it where I swing, I caught a break. I just hit a good ball, that was all."

In the bottom of the inning, the Hornets had a chance to at least tie again. Kevin Brashears led off the inning with a single, advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt and to third on a groundout. The Hornets had to like their chances when Van Sickler stepped up to the plate. He was already 4-for-5 on the day, but Carthage pitcher Mike Maher got Van Sickler to hit a soft flyball to center to end the game.

"I had figured he was going to throw me a fastball," Van Sickler said. "He spiked a changeup or whatever he threw. I was just sitting on a fastball and ran it up and I guess the adrenaline kind of got to me a little bit and I swung at a high one."

The Hornets battled back strong from the 6-1 deficit to cut it to 6-5 in the bottom of the fifth. Carthage scored two more runs in the sixth to go up 8-5. Even though the Red Men had some big leads, coach Augie Schmidt IV said he wasn't sure his team would pull it out.

"It wasn't a pretty game by any means, it was probably more like us," he said. "We play like that a lot, there's a lot of chaos and insanity and some mistakes, but then we kind of persevere. We have a saying: If you're shooting for perfection, you're going to be disappointed. That was far from perfection."

Shenandoah sliced the deficit to 8-7 in the seventh by executing well. Brashears and Lambert both reached base and Jesse Henry bunted both runners over to scoring position. Van Sickler hit a single up the middle to score Brashears. Lambert advanced to third on that play and scored when Scott Van Dusseldorp grounded out.

Lambert was key in the eighth. With Adam Delauter on second and two outs, Lambert also hit a single to right center field to tie the game at 8-8.

"After Lambert's hit, I thought we would come out and win it," Anderson said.

Levac took care of the Red Men in the ninth and even got them to ground out in to an inning-ending double play with the runners on first and second and one out.

"I guess we should feel good," Schmidt said. "You've got to give credit to Shenandoah. They just kept coming back and putting pressure on us and they kept turning the double play."

The Hornets set a school record in turning four double plays, but it was a twin-killing that stifled the offense. Van Sickler led the ninth off with a single and Van Dusseldorp tried to bunt him over to second but popped into the hands of a diving Maher.

"I thought the momentum turned when we had the lead runner on and they turned a double play on a sac bunt," Anderson said. "Momentum is something that a lot of people won't talk about in baseball and you can get that from your defense and you can feel the energy almost shift from one dugout to another, when we lined out on a bunt. But our kids battled back and we had a couple of big double plays."

Even though the Hornets aren't playing anymore, Van Sickler said getting to the World Series isn't such a long shot anymore for his team.

"[Anderson's] taken this to a completely new level and now we know we can get here," Van Sickler said. "For a while coach Anderson talked about the teams in Appleton. I always thought, 'Oh man, we're never good enough to get there, there's unbelievable talent out there.' For us to make it here shows that we can come back next year and do this. Knock on wood, it's not out of reach."

Notes: Scott Lambert ended the season on a 19-game hitting streak ... Van Sickler's 20 doubles on the year set a new school record ... Six Hornets played their last game. They were: Josh Simons, Lambert, Jasen Eberz, Kyle Kilpatrick, Matthew Davis, Levac and Justin Kellaway.