Wooster Rallies Past Denison To Win Ninth NCAC Tournament Championship

Hosted by Wittenberg University
May 6-7, 2004 • Carleton Davidson Stadium • Springfield, Ohio

SPRINGFIELD, Ohio - For the second straight day, the College of Wooster Fighting Scots got the best of one of the ace pitchers on the Denison Big Red staff. The resulting offensive barrage - 13-8 on Thursday in Game 1 and 9-8 on Friday in Game 2 - led to a 2-0 sweep, a ninth North Coast Athletic Conference Tournament championship and an automatic berth in the NCAA Division III Tournament.

Wooster, the NCAC East Division champion, improved to 35-8 overall with the win, while Denison, champion of the West Division, dropped to 31-7 overall. The Scots, who won the tournament crown for a conference-record ninth time, avenged an NCAC Tournament semifinal defeat against Denison a year ago, and they recorded their third win against no defeats on the season against the Big Red.

This one was anything but easy, though, and the action was choppy at best thanks to four errors by each team. Of the 16 runs scored in the game, six were unearned, including the last three runs Wooster scored to take the lead in an eventful eighth inning. Denison committed four errors in the inning, two on one play as the Scots cleared the bases on a bases-loaded Luke Ullman single, a fielding error and a throwing error. All four runs in the inning were charged to Denison's Dallas Puskar, who was credited with the loss despite allowing just two hits and one walk while facing six Wooster hitters after coming on in relief of Big Red starter Drew Shamrock.

It was a fitting end to a game that started with three Wooster errors in the top of the first inning, which resulted in two Denison runs. The Big Red pushed the lead out to 7-2 in the fifth inning on a two-run double by Shamrock, a sacrifice fly by Lee Fischer and an RBI single by Alex Nicolich. But Wooster set the stage for a comeback in the sixth by getting three of those runs back on a home run by Mark Lucas.

After taking a 9-7 lead with the aforementioned four runs in the eighth inning, Wooster pitcher James Amendola ran into trouble after yielding a lead-off single to Denison's Adam Mandel. Amendola was relieved by Justin Alaburda, who allowed Mandel to come around and score on a Fischer single. A wild pitch, two outs and a stolen base later and the tying run was just 90 feet away, but Alaburda earned his first save of the season with a strikeout to end the game.

Amendola got the win in relief of Wooster starter Brian Miller as he threw 3 2/3 innings, allowing three hits, two walks and one earned run against the potent Denison lineup. Miller allowed six hits and seven runs, five earned, in 4 1/3 innings. Denison starter Drew Shamrock went seven strong innings, allowing eight hits, five walks and five runs, four earned, in seven innings. He appeared to be in good position to pick up his ninth win against no losses this season after recording his 11th strikeout of the game to end a bases-loaded seventh-inning threat, but it wasn't to be.

Offensively, Wooster had four players finish with two hits each - Ullman, Matt Miller, Jake Frank and Lucas. Denison had three players collect two hits each - Mandel, Fischer and Shamrock. Fischer and Shamrock each had three runs batted in.