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Pioneers can clinch World Series berth with win Sunday

By Josh Hughes 6 min read

MARIETTA -- One win away. That's all it takes for the Marietta College Pioneers to get back to the Division III College World Series for the first time since they won it all in 2012.

The Etta Express (42-5) took care of business during game one of the best-of-three Super Regional series against Oswego State on Saturday at Pioneer Park. This is the program's first Super Regional victory, as the Super Regional format was just introduced to D3 in 2019. Now, they'll have to win one more Super Regional game.

In the 13-2 romp, a slow offensive start was finally brushed aside, as seven Pioneer runs in the bottom of the fourth put the game out of reach for the visiting Lakers (33-12). MC starter Trent Valentine preserved other arms for Sunday's potential pair of games (with the first of those two starting at noon) by going seven innings strong. He needed to be sharp early on, as Lukas Olsson's RBI in the top of the first and Zach Boyd's in the bottom half had the game deadlocked at 1-1 through three innings. No matter the score, he was prepared for anything.

"It's great (to get run support in the fourth), but in my mind, I was still thinking it was 1-1," Valentine said. "I wasn't even looking at the score. It was 1-1. I had to get all the outs and no runs come across. They're fun to watch in the dugout, I'll say that much. Down there, it might not look like I'm watching (them), but I'm watching and clapping along. It's great. My fastball and changeup were really all I threw, but that's what was getting the outs. They were chasing, so I went off the plate with the fastball and with the changeup down, and it was great."

That eventful fourth inning saw MC bat around Oswego State starter Kieran Finegan, as both Boyd and Trent Castle reached on fielding errors to begin the frame. Brett Carson's bunt to advance the runners worked to perfection, as he beat the throw to first to load the bases with nobody out. From there, Alex Richter, Drew Wilkinson and Turner Hill all knocked in a run apiece. However, the fun didn't stop there. Standing at third, Richter scored on a wild pitch to make it 5-1. Then, an RBI double from Damian Yenzi brought Hill around. Drew Holderbach's sacrifice fly to make it 7-1 wasn't quite enough for Oswego State head coach Scott Landers to pull his starter, but a solo homer from Logan Vietmeier during the following at-bat was. In total, seven runs scored on five hits and two errors.

"Hats off to Marietta. They played a great game," Landers said following the setback. "Hopefully, we'll come back tomorrow and show what we're made of. When you play at this level, you've got to be able to pitch and play defense and hit, and they made the plays. We didn't make the plays in that inning, and it cost us. We didn't string the at-bats together after that, and we didn't take the momentum back, and they won."

A pair of runs scored by Yenzi to close the fifth provided a bit more cushion, as his contribution alongside Castle's three-run dinger in the sixth put an exclamation point on this contest.

"I think when we're focused on getting on-base, we just focused on the guy behind us and making their job easier," Brett Carson said after going 3 for 4 with a stolen base and a pair of runs. "Even when we sped them up, and they had a couple errors, it made it easier for a couple hits to fall due to their positioning. It's easier to score runs that way, and getting on-base just helps everyone out."

Marietta's execution in all phases of the game was paramount to getting the win, as it was Yenzi who made the defensive play of the afternoon. In the fifth inning with one aboard and no outs, Oswego State's Jacob Levine rocketed a grounder toward the third baseman.

Yenzi fell to the dirt, securing the ball in the process. He then spun around and fired the ball to second to start an improbable double play. It's that defensive intensity the Pios look to carry over into the next game.

"That ball was hit pretty hard," Yenzi said. "Our internal clock is what we've been talking about all season, and there was a quick runner going to first. I knew we had to be quick with it. Since it was hit so hard, I knew we at least had a chance at it. I tried to give Richter a good feed at second, and he gave a good, strong strike to Holderbach at first base."

Head coach Brian Brewer was happy with how the team came out to play, as there is plenty of momentum to go around. Senior righty Isaac Danford gets the ball in Game 2.

"It was really well played. I thought we played exceptionally well in really, all three phases for the most part," he said. "We had a game plan to try and speed them up and move the ball. While we didn't have a lot of success with that early on, we stood pat and stayed with it. That paid off for us, as the game went on. We had a lot of things in our favor going into today, and I think that continues to be the case. You can have everything going in your favor, but if you don't show up, it doesn't matter. You're playing a lot of good teams this time of year. We told the guys that they've got to focus. There's going to be a lot of clutter, and their parents are talking about Cedar Rapids and everything else. We've just got to lock in physically and mentally and try to win pitch one, tomorrow. If we do that, I like our chances."

Contact Josh Hughes at jhughes@newsandsentinel.com

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