WARRENSBURG, Mo. -- The ACU Wildcats made a valiant attempt at coming through the loser's bracket and winning a regional championship, but that bid fell just short Tuesday evening at Crane Stadium.
Central Missouri won the decisive if-necessary game 11-4 to earn the program's 15th trip to the NCAA Division II Championship Tournament. The Wildcats -- who beat the Mules 11-5 earlier Tuesday to force the winner-take-all game -- were trying to return to the championship tournament for the first time since making the program's only appearance in 2003.
The Wildcats were forced to come through the loser's bracket after Friday's 5-4 loss to Incarnate Word. They waited through two days of rainouts and then almost made it happen with one of the most amazing 24 hours of ACU baseball in the program's history.
ACU knocked off St. Mary's 9-8 in 13 innings Monday night in a game that ended at 11:45 p.m. They started another elimination game against Incarnate Word at 12:15 a.m. and beat the Cardinals 9-4 in a game that ended at 3:15 a.m. Tuesday.
The Wildcats -- who in the process of making it back to the championship game won a program-record 50 games in 2010 -- were back on the field less than 12 hours after the game against Incarnate Word ended and they wasted little time jumping on the Mules as
Chris Hall homered to left with one out in the bottom of the first to make it 1-0.
ACU tacked on four runs in the second inning on RBI singles from
Travis Latz and Will Calhoun and a sacrifice fly from Hall. ACU scored four more in the fourth to make it 9-1 as Willie Uechi and
Cameron Watten each drove in a pair of runs with two-out hits.
Those nine runs ended up being more than enough for the ACU pitching staff, which allowed just seven hits against the Mules.
Aaron Lambrix finished his season 10-0 after picking up the win with five innings of two-hit baseball.
After Lambrix left the game, relievers
Josh Crockett,
Ryan McCabe,
Kevin Justice and
Brad Rutherford got big outs to keep the Wildcats' big lead intact. After Central Missouri got a couple of runs in the seventh to make it 10-3,
Aaron Oliver drove his 14th home run of the season out over the wall in right-centerfield to make it an 11-3 game.
In the nightcap, the Wildcats jumped out to a 3-0 lead on starting pitcher Mitch Stubenhofer as Oliver tripled to lead off the game and scored on Hall's groundout. Calhoun followed with a single and then scored on Uechi's two-out double. Uechi then scored on a throwing error by Frank Specht on a ball hit by
Cameron Watten.
But the Mules got back in it with two runs in the bottom of the second against starting pitcher
Jordan Hartley and then took a lead they wouldn't lose with three runs in the third. However, the Wildcats got a run back in the top of the fourth to cut the lead to 5-4 and that's where the game stayed through the middle innings as Alex Kent for Central Missour and
Zach Sneed for ACU settled things down on both sides.
The Mules, however, broke thorugh in the bottom of the sixth with five runs on six hits to push the lead out to 10-4. Tournament MVP Nick DeBiasse -- who drove in 16 runs in the tournament -- had an RBI hit, and that was followed by RBI hits from Frank Specht, Tyler Ruch and John Wegener.
Central Missouri tacked on an insurance run in the bottom of the seventh, and that was all the Mules would need to clinch the trip to North Carolina.
Hall, Oliver and pitcher
Cameron Aspaas were each named to the all-tournament team for ACU.
