DECATUR, Illinois—Denison took the nation's No. 1 ranked team to the brink, but the WashU Bears managed to claw their way to a 2-0 victory over the Big Red in the 11
th and final game of the Decatur NCAA Division III Baseball Regional.
The Big Red turned to junior right-hander
Kenny Lippman whose last appearance came on May 2 against Wittenberg. Lippman answered the call and then some, firing the first complete game of his career in the most pressure-packed situation the Denison baseball program has faced in it's 130+ years of existence.
While Denison turned to Lippman, WashU reached into their bag of tricks and trotted out the nation's No. 1 closer, Jared Fong. In his first start of the season, Fong went 7.1 innings scoreless innings. He walked one and gave up only four hits.
The game was scoreless until the fifth when WashU's Collin Kahal led off with a base hit. A sacrifice bunt moved Kahal into scoring position and a ground out by Hunter Goldberg advanced him to third. With two outs, Kahal scored on a wild pitch to put them up 1-0.
In the sixth, another lead off single by the Bears turned up the heat. With Henry Singer on third and two outs, Bo Anderson delivered the game's biggest hit, doubling to right, scoring Singer.
In the bottom of the eighth, Denison mounted a threat that started with a one out single by
Anthony Ruggieri who proceeded to steal second with pinch hitter
Daniel Spencer at the plate. Spencer came through with a single to center that put runners on the corner with one out.
That ended the day for Fong and the Bears turned to staff ace Ryan Loutos to get them out of the jam. Loutos got
Dylan Hunter to fly out to shallow right field and then retired the dangerous Brian McAullife on a pop out to short.
In the bottom of the ninth, Denison brought the potential tying run to the plate after a single by
Will Krushena with one out but Loutos slammed the door to send WashU to its first Division III World Series in program history.
Lippman (1-2) was saddled with the hard-luck loss while Fong (4-0) earned the win and Loutos picked up the save. Denison's season comes to an end with a record of 27-13 while the Bears improve to 32-4.
This marked the third consecutive NCAA Regional appearance for Denison. They ended the regional with a record of 4-2 highlighted by two wins over No. 3 Webster and one victory over No. 1 WashU.
