BALTIMORE, MD – The Johns Hopkins baseball team had it won. And then the Blue Jays didn't.
Claremont-Mudd-Scripps was then clearly going to win it. And somehow the Stags didn't.
Finally, more than three hours after the second game of the Baltimore Super Regional began, it was the Stags who walked off – literally – a 10-9 win over Johns Hopkins to force a deciding game that is scheduled for 11 am on Saturday morning.
Tied 9-9 going into the bottom of the 10
th, the Stags used two walks and a single to left field with one out to load the bases and then
Dillon Martin drew a four-pitch walk to plate
Bryce Didrickson with the game-winning run in the 10-9 victory.
The 10
th-inning drama was made possible by an even more dramatic ninth, which saw the Blue Jays grab a 9-8 lead on a
Shane Keough RBI double to right center that chased home
Hamilton Adams with one out. Keough was stranded at second and that left the door open for Claremont.
Martin was in the middle of the ninth-inning rally that forced extra innings as he raced home from first on a
Blaise Heher RBI-double to the corner in left. Heher was down to his final strike before lacing his double and had a chance to end it when he tried to score on a
Keegan Cabrera single to left, but
Lukas Geer cut him down at the plate to send it to extras.
The Blue Jays got a runner on in their half of the 10
th, but stranded Geer at first before the Stags won it in the home half of the inning.
The ending seemed destined from the start as the teams went blow for blow throughout game two, which followed a 16-15 Blue Jay walk off in game one.
The teams traded early runs as the Stags got a run in the bottom of the first when Didrickson opened the game with a walk and later scored on a double play, while the Blue Jays came right back in the top of the second to tie things up on an Adams run-scoring single up the middle.
The Blue Jays (37-10) grabbed their first lead of the game an inning later as they pushed across a pair with two outs. After Claremont's
Tegin Maloney retired the first two batters of the inning,
Luke Baker worked a walk and
Alex Shane took Maloney's first offering over the wall in left center to give the Blue Jays a 3-1 lead.
The back-and-forth continued in the bottom of the third as the Stags pushed across a pair of runs off Blue Jay starter
Thomas Cancian, who walked in back-to-back runs after Claremont had loaded the bases with two outs.
The deadlock didn't last long as the Blue Jays answered in the top of the fourth with two more courtesy of a bases loaded hit by pitch and a
Jacob Harris sacrifice fly that made it 5-3 and Geer added a solo home run in the top of the fifth to extend the cushion to 6-3.
The three-run cushion was gone in the bottom of the inning as the Stags, who entered the game second only to Johns Hopkins in home runs on the year, hit a pair of long balls to pull even. A two-run bomb to right off the bat of national home run leader
Alex Henderson made it 6-5 and a
Carter Bennett solo shot to left pulled the Stags even.
Claremont retook the lead in the bottom of the sixth as a Henderson single to right chased home
Charlie Kalil. Kalil raced home from second and narrowly beat a great throw from Shane.
The Blue Jays pushed across another pair in the top of the seventh to again grab the lead at 8-7. A
Clay Hartje single plated Shane and
William Jaun, who had singled earlier in the inning, advanced to third on a wild pitch and came home on a throwing error to give Hopkins the one-run lead.
Max Pemberton, whose throwing error in the top of the seventh had helped the Jays take the lead, got his redemption in the bottom of the inning with a two-out home run to right that tied the game for the fourth time at 8-8.
The 8-8 score held until a ninth inning that saw both teams have chances to put it away. When neither did, it was the Stags who walked away in the 10
th to force the deciding game.
Inside the Box Score – Johns Hopkins
• Geer and Adams both collected a pair of hits with Geer also scoring three times.
• Hartje reached base three times on two walks and a hit while Adams was also on three times with the two hits and a walk.
• The home runs for Shane and Geer push the Blue Jays' season total to 109, which is the fourth-best total in Division III history and just five shy of the record of 114, which JHU set in 2023.
