ROSEVILLE, Minn. --- Crown College Baseball fell 4-1 to the UW-Superior Yellowjackets in the play-in game of the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC) tournament on Thursday. The Storm were the No. 4 seed, coming into the game with an 11-5 conference record, and the Yellowjackets were the No. 5 seed with an 8-8 record. Superior will move on to face the Northwestern Eagles on Saturday at 1 p.m.
After moving the game back from a scheduled 1 p.m. start due to rain, Crown's Nick Schroedle and Superior's Ryan Rodriguez engaged in a pitching duel for the main story of this contest. Schroedle pitched incredibly well for the Storm, going six innings of shutout play. Nick Shea broke the tie in the top of the seventh with a long ball, and unfortunately, that led to a small Superior run, up 3-0 in the middle of the inning after first-year Jacob Van Dam came in to record the final two outs.
The Storm broke up the Yellowjackets no-hitter and shutout in the same at-bat in the bottom of the seventh, with Rhys Dewick hitting a solo home run to tie the game. This blast was Dewick's fourth home run of the season. Unfortunately for the Storm, that was the only time a baserunner reached home, falling to the Yellowjackets 4-1.
Senior pitcher Eric Newman closed out the game for the last two innings, who continued his remarkable campaign with two innings without an earned run. Undoubtedly, the Storm were saving Newman for a matchup with Northwestern tomorrow, but without run production to aid Schroedle's stellar performance, they fell just short of advancing to the double-elimination stage of the tournament.
Four Storm batters recorded hits in the contest, with a triple from Seth Betts and singles from Hunter Felts and Tristan Shoemaker. That Betts triple makes him the Crown single-season record holder in total bases, with an incredible 114 bases this year. This contest was the second consecutive playoff appearance for the Storm as Crown also fell to the Yellowjackets in 2019 as the No. 5 seed (2020 did not feature a conference championship due to the pandemic).
Crown College Athletics has completed all 2020-21 seasons and looks forward to something similar to pre-pandemic life for the fall semester. Thanks to all coaches, staff, and student-workers that made these seasons possible, with a special shoutout to Athletic Trainers Andrew Herdman and Andrea Beidelman, who went above and beyond to keep us safe.
