Story courtesy of Texas Lutheran University Sports Information
APPLETON, Wis. -- The Texas Lutheran Bulldogs forced the "if necessary" game for Pool B of the NCAA Division III Baseball World Series with a 9-7 win Sunday night and Monday morning against Concordia University Chicago.
TLU fought off elimination in the D3 World Series for a second consecutive game. The Bulldogs defeated Swarthmore (Pa.) 3-2 in 13 innings earlier in the day.
The Bulldogs and the Concordia Chicago Cougars will meet again (for the third time in the tournament) at 3:30 p.m. Monday. The winner collects the Pool B mini-tournament win and gets the right to face either the University of Texas at Tyler or Randolph-Macon (Va.) for the national championship in a best 2-out-of-3 series.
TLU improved to 41-10 overall with its third win of the World Series. Concordia dropped its first game of the championship. The Cougars are now 40-14.
The game started at 9:44 p.m. and ended at 12:58 a.m. Monday morning.
Texas Lutheran broke a 6-6 tie with three runs in the top of the ninth. Spencer Brandt drove in the winning run with a single through the left side.
TLU added two more runs in the frame and gave Drew Waller a three-run cushion.
The Cougars scratched across one run in the bottom of the ninth before Thomas Varner made a diving stab and then a strong throw to nip a runner at first to end the game.
Waller picked up the victory and improved to 6-2 overall. Alex Meyers took the loss. He fell to 6-3.
Senior right-hander Clint Johns entered the game in the second inning and tossed six important innings that allowed TLU to rally from a 3-0 deficit in the first. Johns struck out seven and surrendered just two runs.
Riley Schaefer collected a pair of hits and drove in three runs, and Keaton Boysen recorded three hits and scored twice.
Brandt scored three times and had two hits and an RBI, and Matthew Lemon went 2-for-3 with an RBI. Thomas Varner also had two hits, and he drove in a run.
