Bellevue shortstop Shawn Lee chases SAU pinch runner Brad Wolfe back toward second. Wolfe had made an ill-advised move toward third on a grounder hit to Lee and was eventually tagged out in the eighth inning.
Riggleman’s new squad has him back in World Series title game after beating Bellevue with gutty pitching, late rally
Over the past few days, with Spring Arbor maneuvering its way deeper into the NAIA World Series, Sam Riggleman has listened to the questions. Is this run different? people ask. Does it mean more than 2000?
And, at least on this occasion, the Cougars coach showed no reluctance in answering.
“It’s just more special,” he said after Spring Arbor dispatched Bellevue 7-5 to reach the championship round. “This is my alma mater. And the expectation (at Dallas Baptist) was you should be here. At Spring Arbor, we’ve just blown everybody away. And that’s made it so much more fun.”
Now we’ll find out if his club can pull off a bona fide stunner.
Seven years after Riggleman guided DBU to the Series finale against Lewis-Clark State, the second-seeded Cougars are in an identical spot: They must navigate past the Warriors twice to pocket the program’s first national championship.
In 2000, Dallas Baptist couldn’t force a second game, falling 10-1 to L-C.
“It’s an awesome, awesome experience,” Cougars second baseman Jesse Bachman said. “The way I see it, it’s really a win-win situation from here on out.”
Spring Arbor (48-4) has rebounded from its Memorial Day loss to L-C with back-to-back impressive offensive outbursts. In Wednesday’s elimination game, Bachman sparked a 10-hit attack with a double, two singles and two runs scored.
The Cougars also received a gutsy pitching performance from Brad Hinkle, who shook off early struggles to stymie the Bruins (47-15) in the final four innings.
After SAU rallied in the fifth inning to grab a 6-5 lead, the 6-foot-10 pitcher registered three 1-2-3 innings. With yet another complete game - his 14th on the year - the senior moved his record to 15-0.
“His toughness is unbelievable,” Bachman said of Hinkle. “He’s been like that all year. Sometimes he’ll start out a little slow, but he just gets better. … We expect him to take the ball and keep it.”
What had been a back-and-forth tussle turned permanently in the Cougars’ favor in the fifth. They surged ahead with three runs on four hits. The key sequence came after Jeffrey Tebeau’s double scored Bradley Baker to even the score at 5-all.
Jonathan Herbig then smoked a single up the middle and Tebeau dove head first toward the outside portion of the plate, dodging the tag from Bellevue catcher Mike Pratt.
“I was standing right there,” Riggleman said, “and (Pratt) swiped him right across the top and I was just hoping (the umpire) was going to get it right.”
The Bruins threatened only once after that with consecutive singles by Scott Raterman and Josh Northrup to start the seventh. But Hinkle quickly induced a popup and a crucial 6-4-3 double play.
“That hurt,” Bellevue coach Mike Evans said. “That’s not usually our game. We usually advance the runners and do the (little) things. I don’t know, it just wasn’t our day.”
Less than 24 hours after collapsing late against L-C, the Bruins clearly didn’t have the same verve that carried them in previous games. After some early aggressiveness, their lineup didn’t produce at the plate - or on the basepaths.
And they committed two damaging errors that helped Spring Arbor score single runs in the third and eighth.
“They just had a little bit more resolve than we did,” Evans said. “I thought our kids played hard, but last night’s game took a lot out of (us). After we fell apart last night, we never really gained ourselves back here today. That took a lot out of us.”
By Josh Wright of the Tribune
