Dennis Clark
The Tribune-Star
TERRE HAUTE —
Rose-Hulman’s baseball team is hopeful that the third time is a charm. For the third consecutive year, the Engineers have qualified for the NCAA Division III Regional.
In eerily similar fashion the past two years, Rose won its first game in the regional, then lost two straight games and were eliminated in the double-elimination format.
This year, the Engineers want to shake up that scenario. Rose-Hulman (29-12) is the No. 5 seed in this year’s six-team NCAA DIII Central Regional and will open play vs. North Central College at 4 p.m. today. The tournament continues through Saturday at Augustana College in Moline, Ill.
“I think we’re going in with a lot of confidence,” Rose coach Jeff Jenkins said. “Having been there before and a few of these teams haven’t been there before, we’re hoping that experience can really help turn the tables for us.”
How similar were the Engineers’ previous two DIII Regional appearances?
“Won opening game both times with Derek Eitel on the mound,” Jenkins recalled. “He pitched outstanding in both of those … beat the No. 1 seed last year, in fact, 12-2.
“Then we got in the second game and we played well. But we made a few mistakes, blew some leads and ended up losing by one run in both games to the same team, Adrian College. We know it could have easily gone either way. Very easily we could have been 2-0 [heading into the latter rounds].”
Rose has had an up-and-down season this year. The Engineers started the season with a glossy 24-6 record, but dropped five of its last seven regular season games — losing five of six games on the road in that stretch.
“We didn’t play well on the road,” Jenkins admitted. “We got real comfortable with our home surroundings. We fielded .990 as a team on our field and that’s pretty darn good. But on the road, we fielded .950 and we didn’t play with the energy on the road we needed to do at times.
“We had a few guys struggle and we used a lot of players this season. But I think though that ended up a plus for us, because we’re going into the tournament with a lot more depth.”
Rose qualified for last weekend’s Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference Tournament as the No. 4 seed (only four teams qualify), then literally slugged their way to an HCAC title and the NCAA automatic bid.
In the HCAC tournament, Rose defeated No. 1 seed and host team Anderson 15-13 in the opener. Then they won what turned out to be a best-of-three series vs. Manchester, winning 10-9, losing 13-9, before winning 20-8 in the championship game.
Seniors Keenan Long and Tim Tepe were named co-HCAC Tournament MVPs. Long was 10 for 19, with 11 RBIs, while Tepe was 10 for 20 with eight runs scored and banged out six extra basehits.
Also earning all-HCAC honors were sophomore Derek Dauenbaugh (team-high 11 hits), junior Andrew Oakley (2-0 record, one save, allowing one run in 9 1/3 innings) and junior Chris Stemple (nine hits, nine runs scored).
Eitel (6-2) won the first two NCAA games the past two seasons and he will be on the mound for today’s matchup with North Central. He was the winning pitcher vs. Anderson in the HCAC Tournament, despite allowing seven runs in 7 2/3 innings.
“We have to have other pitchers step up and give us good quality starts in regional play,” Jenkins stated. “We’ve got to get our starters into the fifth and sixth innings to give us a chance to win.”
A high-scoring HCAC Tournament not withstanding, Jenkins knows pitching will be will be paramount to his team’s NCAA success. Even good hitting — scoring 54 runs in the HCAC event — can be stopped on occasion.
“After an inning-and-a-third, we only got three hits the rest of the game and ended up losing 13-9,” Jenkins said of his team’s only HCAC Tournament loss vs. Manchester.
“There’s going to be enough good pitching to shut down our hitters. We need to play low-scoring games, 5-4, 4-3, 3-2 games. We won some of those high-scoring games, but boy, to be forced into that … it’s awful tough.”
NCAA Division III Baseball Regional
At Augustana College, Moline, Ill.
Today
Game 1 — Buena Vista vs. Illinois Wesleyan, 1 p.m.
Game 2 — North Central vs. Rose-Hulman, 4:30 p.m.
Game 3 — Ripon vs. Webster, 8 p.m.
Thursday
Game 4 — Loser game 1 vs. Loser game 2, 1 p.m.
Game 5 — Winner game 1 vs. Loser game 3, 4:30 p.m.
Game 6 — Winner game 2 vs. Winner game 3, 8 p.m.
Friday and Saturday
Bracket determined by number of teams remaining after game 5.
