Tribune-Star staff report
Franklin — An offensive explosion highlighted a history-making day for Rose-Hulman baseball.
Rose-Hulman captured the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference Baseball tournament title and advanced to the NCAA Division III Tournament for the second straight year after topping Franklin College 17-10 on Sunday.
The Engineers will be making their fourth trip to NCAA Tournament play and the first back-to-back appearances in school history. The site, times and first-round opponent for the NCAA Tournament will be released this morning.
Rose-Hulman (31-12) also captured its first conference tournament championship since 1996 and the third league tourney title in school history.
“We’ve been in a lot of big games and it’s great to finally win one. This is icing on the cake for an incredible team effort all season long,” said Rose-Hulman head coach Jeff Jenkins.
Franklin jumped out to a 5-1 lead after four innings with three runs in the first inning and two in the third. Rose-Hulman rallied with a punishing offensive effort that featured six runs in the sixth, three in the seventh and three in the ninth to claim the victory.
Junior Keenan Long led the 20-hit Rose-Hulman offensive attack with four singles and four RBIs.
Junior Chandler Kent, sophomore Chris Stemple and sophomore Kreigh Williams pitched in with three hits each. Williams slapped a double with two runs scored and two RBIs, Kent had three singles, three RBIs and scored twice, while Stemple scored four runs with a double and one RBI.
Other Engineers with multiple hits included junior Tim Tepe with two singles, two runs and one RBI, and sophomore Michael Kovacs with a double, single and one run scored.
Junior Andrew Bilse added a double, two runs scored and two RBIs, with junior Troy Eveslage smashing a double with two runs scored.
On the mound, sophomore Andrew Oakley earned his second victory of the season with a critical 3 1/3 innings of middle relief. Oakley allowed just one hit and one walk while entering the game with the Engineers trailing 5-1 and leaving the game with the score 11-5 in Rose-Hulman’s favor.
Sophomore Nick Rumpke shut down a critical seventh inning with two strikeouts to turn the ball over to the final pitcher of the day. Junior Derek Eitel closed out the tournament by tossing the final two innings to earn his second save of the season.
“We’re far from being done and our approach to postseason play will be a little different than last season. We were a whisker away from winning the regional in 2008, and we’re excited and going to be ready to go,” said Jenkins.
Rose-Hulman 010 016 306 — 17 20 0
Franklin 302 000 311 — 10 13 3
Sadzeck, Oakley (4), Markowitz (7), Rumpke (7), Eitel (8) and Long. Mehringer, Patterson (6), McNealy (6), Paul (6), Dahlstrom (7), Applegate (8), Fannin (9), Schroeder (9) and Wahl. W - Oakley (2-2); L - Paterson (9-2); S - Eitel (2).
