SUWANEE, Ga. - At the 2008 SCAC
Championship, Millsaps College stood poised to become just the
third baseball team in league history to win two games on
championship Sunday and come out of the loser's bracket to
earn a conference title. Millsaps, who had forced
the "if necessary" contest by defeating Trinity University, 10-5,
in Sunday's first game, was leading game two 5-2 heading
into the bottom of the ninth. The Majors were just three outs
away from their seventh conference baseball title and a berth
in the NCAA tournament.
In short, Trinity would need a huge ninth-inning rally to
pull out the victory; some might say, the Tigers needed nothing
short of a miracle.
The 2007-08 athletics season had already produced
one miraculous moment between these two conference rivals. The
Miracle in Mississippi became one of the most talked
about plays in college footbal history as Trinity used 15 laterals on the game's final play to shock
the Majors, 28-24.
Lightning did indeed strike twice, and in another cruel,
gut-wrenching ending for Millsaps, Trinity scored four
ninth-inning runs, capped by Stosh Hoover's two-out,
two-strike drive into the right centerfield gap that
scored Kevin Jackson with the tying run and Dylan Early with the
winning run. After taking a huge turn around third, Early dove
around the tag of Millsaps' Tyler Berry and then beat Berry back to
the plate to provide the winning margin and give the Tigers the
2008 conference title in the most unlikely of manners. Box Score of
Championship Game
That game - and its crazy ninth-inning
ending - is being honored as the top moment in SCAC
Baseball history. You can watch the bottom of the ninth of the
deciding game of the 2008 SCAC Baseball Championship below.
Kevin Maloney and Bob Edwards are on the call. Top 20
Moments homepage
Russell Kramer, the SCAC Director of Communications/New Media, had a chance to catch up with the man who drove in the winning runs, former Trinity student-athlete Stosh Hoover, as well as Tiger skipper Tim Scannell. To listen to the interview with Hoover; click here; to listen to the interview with Scannell, click here.
To view the complete list of SCAC Baseball Top Moments, click here.
This is the last of the Top 20 moments releases. As a way of celebrating its 20th anniversary, the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference announced the Top 20 moments for each sport the league sponsors (excluding men's and women's lacrosse), culminating with the release of the Top 20 baseball moments. Go to the Top 20 Moments homepage for more information on other sports.
