BALTIMORE, MD – For the second time in seven days, the Johns Hopkins baseball team earned a walk-off win the NCAA Tournament as
Damian Brown scampered home on a throwing error by Claremont-Mudd-Scripps with two outs in the bottom of the 10
th to give the Blue Jays a 16-15 victory in game one of the Super Regional at Babb Field on Friday afternoon.
With the win, the Blue Jays (37-9) are one win away from the Division III World Series for the second consecutive year and the fifth time since 2019. Game two in the best two-of-three series is tentatively scheduled for 5 pm today.
Trailing 15-14 after the Stags' Bryce Didrickson's solo home run in the top of the 10
th, the Blue Jays had the bases loaded after
Jacob Harris was hit by a pitch with one out and two runners on. After
Tegin Maloney got
Luke Baker swinging, his wild pitch allowed
Shane Keough to scamper home with the tying run.
Shortly after with Brown on third, another Maloney offering skipped away from catcher
Max Pemberton, who quickly gathered the loose ball as Brown came down the line. As Brown doubled back to third base, Pemberton's throw to pick him off skipped away from third baseman
Charlie Kalil and Brown raced home with the game-winning run.
The two-run 10
th for the Blue Jays marked the seventh lead change of a game that featured 31 runs, 30 hits and five errors in a game played in less-than-ideal conditions on a chilly, rainy afternoon.
Johns Hopkins appeared to be in control entering the eighth inning with a three-run lead (14-11) and just six outs away from a win.
A Pemberton run-scoring single, an RBI-double by
Blaise Hehrer and an
Alex Henderson sacrifice fly – things were even at 14.
Both teams loaded the bases in the ninth, but
Jeff Shue popped out to end the Stags' threat in the top half of the inning and
Clay Hartje's line drive to shortstop closed the bottom of the ninth.
The Didrickson home run came on the sixth pitch of the 10
th inning, but
William Hancock came on in relief after the Stags got a man on with a walk and he worked his way out of trouble to set the stage for the Blue Jay walk-off.
Things were wild from the start as the first four innings solved nothing with the teams splitting 10 runs with the Stags scoring in three of their first four at bats and the Blue Jays using a four-run third to help account for the 5-5 tie.
The Blue Jays trailed 3-1 entering the bottom of the third but scored four times with two outs to quickly turn the two-run deficit into a two-run lead. An
Alex Shane RBI-single plated Harris and
Lukas Geer followed two batters later with a home run to left.
The Stags answered in the top of the fourth with a Rider Gordon two-run home run that evened things at 5-5. The Gordon home run was the first and three the Stags would hit in a two-inning span as they added a Pemberton solo shot and a two-run Josh Jacobs blast in the fifth to grab an 8-5 lead.
As quickly as the Stags used the five-run spurt to go up 8-5, the Blue Jays answered with a five-spot courtesy of three long balls in the bottom of the fifth to go up 10-8.
William Jaun launched a two-run home run to left center just four pitches into the inning to trim the deficit to 8-7 and Hartje went over the wall in right two batters later to even things up. With two outs and Keough aboard after walking, Brown snuck one over the wall in left to give the Jays the two-run lead.
A three-run Claremont (34-14) sixth was followed by a four-run Blue Jay rally in the bottom of the inning to give the Blue Jays the 14-11 lead they would eventually carry into the eighth.
Inside the Box Score – Johns Hopkins
• Shane paced the Blue Jays at the plate as he was 4-for-5 with three runs scored and two RBIs; he also walked once to reach base in 5-of-6 plate appearances.
• Harris, Jaun, Geer and Brown all collected two hits to fuel a 15-hit attack. The Blue Jays also drew nine walks and had four hit batters to account for 28 base runners in the victory.
• Hancock got the win as he worked a scoreless inning after entering with one on and nobody out in the 10
th.
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