Storybook season is over for Birmingham-Southern College. Now the program has also ended.
Sam Paden hit a home run, his second of the game, in the bottom of the ninth inning to give Wisconsin-Whitewater an 11-10 victory in an elimination game in the Division III College World Series. The Warhawks will play Salve Regina on Monday for a chance to advance to the tournament semifinals.
SURVIVE AND ADVANCE:
Whitewater ends Birmingham-Southern’s Cinderella streak, completing a comeback with a walk-off home run by Sam Paden.@UWWBaseball is one of four teams remaining in the DIII College World Series.
: NCAA pic.twitter.com/bUDDBIGVx0
—Andrew Bandstra (@andrewbandstra) June 2, 2024
Birmingham-Southern became a national curiosity when the baseball team advanced to the DIII World Series, outliving the life of its current institution. The private liberal arts college in Birmingham, Alabama, with an enrollment of 1,300 students, closed May 31, the same day the Panthers opened the tournament, due to financial difficulties.
UW-Whitewater opened the scoring in the second inning with its outfielders hitting Panthers starting pitcher Carter Tyus. Paden and Dominik McVay hit back-to-back home runs, each counting 3-1 before going deep. The Warhawks added another run on an RBI single by Matt Scolan to build a 3-0 lead.
The Panthers responded by roaring
McVay followed with an excellent catch in the third, diving into the warning track in left-center field to rob Ty Truett of a leadoff extra-base hit. However, Birmingham-Southern rallied with Eli Steadman’s two-run shot off Jack Hagen to make it a 3-2 game.
In the fourth, Jackson Webster led off with a home run to tie the score. That was the start of BSC jumping on Hagen with a double by Ian Hancock, a triple by Charlie Banks and a single by Jakob Zito that resulted in two more runs and a 5-3 lead.
Let the fight begin in Eastlake
However, the Warhawks responded with hits, tying the score on Scolan’s two-run homer. And what turned into an elimination game brawl was underway.
Birmingham-Southern exploded for four runs in the fifth inning, started with a catcher’s interference call, three straight hits and a hit by pitch. That haunted reliever Cade Hansen, but Max Huseboe came in to allow an RBI single to Zito.
The Panthers added another run in the sixth to take a 10-5 lead, but UW-Whitewater scored runs in the seventh and eighth, both driven by Scolan hits, to reduce the deficit.
FRANK DOES FRANK THINGS
Eli Frank ties it with a 2-run BOMB to left center
It’s a 10-10 game with 2 outs in the bottom of the 8th. pic.twitter.com/vsrwEMmgWR
– UWW Baseball (@UWWBaseball) June 2, 2024
That set up first baseman Eli Frank to launch a two-run homer off Hansen McCown to tie the score at 10-10. The Warhawks threatened to take the lead and followed with two consecutive singles. Andy Thies hit a deep drive to left center, but Steadman caught it at the warning track to end the inning.
