The Games of the Decade, No. 3
12/26/2009 9:00:00 AM | Athletics
The No. 3 game of the decade is a game that was not seen by very many Bearkat fans. The Sam Houston State baseball team was playing in the NCAA baseball regional in Oxford, Miss. taking on Southern Miss in an elimination game.
The Kats rallied in the 9th and 10th innings and then a again in the 11th to pull out a 12-11 victory over the Eagles. The Kats had to then turn around 30 minutes later and play the hosts, Ole Miss, in the Regional Final. They came up short in the night-cap, but it was the comeback against Southern Miss that is the lasting image of that day.
The following is the story that ran in the Huntsville Item the next morning:
Leaving it all on the field
originally published June 4, 2007
By Tom Waddill
The Huntsville Item
OXFORD, Miss. - Baseball really is a crazy game.
Three times Sunday, the Bearkats were down to their final out, and three times, Sam Houston State found some way to stave off elimination and beat Southern Mississippi 12-11 in 11 innings at the NCAA's Oxford Regional.
Unfortunately, SHSU couldn't repeat the trick when they were 11 runs behind and down to their last out in Sunday's late game.
The Bearkats ran out of gas - and more importantly, pitching - against tournament host Ole Miss. The Rebels romped to a 21-13 win over scrappy Sam Houston State and earned a trip to a super regional against either Arizona State or Nebraska.
That hardly tarnishes what SHSU accomplished in its first regional trip since 1996. The Bearkats went 2-2 and outlasted a pair of higher-seeded teams, Southern Miss and Troy.
With their never-say-die spirit, the Bearkats (40-24) also earned the respect of thousands of rabid college baseball fans, a long way from home.
"We got here in the second inning of the first game and Sam Houston was behind 7-1. I thought they were whipped. I thought we were going to play Southern," Ole Miss fan Jeff Henry said as Rebels reliever Cody Satterwhite finally finished off the Bearkats, after they had pushed across three runs in the ninth. "They just kept battling, kept battling."
The Bearkats certainly did that the entire weekend.
On Sunday, the Bearkats fought like crazy just go get into the game with Southern Miss. Sam rallied for a total of six runs in the seventh and eighth innings to tie the game at 7. Then after Southern Miss took a two-run lead in the top of the ninth, the Bearkats simply refused to lose.
On a groundout by Todd Sebek and an RBI single from Heath Pugh, they scored two runs in the bottom of the ninth to knot the score again. After Southern Miss touched closer Luke Prihoda for a run in the top of the 10th, the Bearkats answered when reserve third baseman Aaron Cook delivered a clutch RBI hit.
They did it again in the 11th when Keith Stein sliced a single to right to score Jeremy Holzbach.
The Bearkats put a fitting cap on their thrilling victory when junior Bobby Verbick drilled a fly ball over Southern Miss center fielder Bo Davis to score Clint Mann with the winning run.
"We were playing like it was our last game, because it could have been," said SHSU center fielder Keith Stein, who had five hits with two RBIs in the win over the Golden Eagles. "We were giving everything we had and we kept chipping away, chipping away, chipping away. We kept getting clutch hit after clutch hit.
"It was amazing," added Stein, who went 11-for-17 in the tournament. "Everyone on the team contributed to that win."
It would have taken everyone on the team and more to knock off a rested Ole Miss squad (40-22) in the championship round. Had the Bearkats pulled off the improbable Sunday night, they would have had to repeat the feat today.
For a while, it looked like Sam Houston State might have another miracle in its back pocket. But after Verbick's three-run homer sparked a five-run rally in the top of the fourth against Ole Miss, the Rebels started banging the ball against the Bearkats' beaten bullpen.
Ole Miss, a team that was hosting its fourth straight NCAA regional, hung nine runs in the bottom of the fourth to go on top 16-8, then the Rebels coasted the rest of the way.
"I think Ole Miss is probably very happy, although I think Ole Miss is the best ballclub in the regional and they deserve to represent this regional," Bearkats coach Mark Johnson said. "They've got a great ballclub.
"When we went at it so hard with Southern, and they went at it hard with us, we got into extra innings and we got a lot of emotion with the ebb and flow out there," the coach added. "They score a run, we score a run, they score a run and we score a run. It gets into extra innings and we all got into our bullpens pretty good."
After jumping out to a 3-0 lead in the top of the first in front of 6,329 screaming Ole Miss fans, Johnson said it was only a matter of time before the Bearkats, who were likely playing on pure adrenaline, hit a wall.
"It was a long day. We've been out there since 10:30 this morning," the coach said at a little after 9 p.m. "I'm not making any excuses, I think Ole Miss is the better ballclub. But I think the team coming out of that (first) game, it makes it a little rougher.
"We went all the way to the bottom of our tank and the guys gave a great effort, the pitchers particularly, guys who haven't pitched much for us. But Ole Miss just absolutely squared up to every ball we threw up there. It was incredible how hard they hit the ball."
Catcher Alex Kliman led the Rebels' offense with four hits and five RBIs. Left fielder Justin Henry added four more hits, while second baseman Zach Miller and Zach Cozart had three hits apiece in Ole Miss' 22-hit attack.
All nine of the Bearkat position players collected hits off four Rebel pitchers. Verbick led the way with a pair of hits and three RBIs. Senior Karl Krailo had two hits, including a long home run in his final college at-bat. Two of Krailo's classmates, Jeremy Holzbach and Austin Boggs, drove in two runs each in their final collegiate game.
After the loss to Ole Miss, none of the Bearkats appeared to be disappointed. Rather, they seemed thrilled by what they had accomplished.
A team with a new head coach, a bunch that had never been this far before, a squad that had never even reached the conference tournament, did exactly what Stein talked about after the Bearkats eliminated Troy on Saturday.
The Bearkats took every team's best punch and came back fighting.
"The emotion of this weekend, this was a new experience for all of us," Holzbach said. "I just hope this is something that this club gets to experience for years to come."
