PLU eliminates Whitworth from NCAA Division III regional baseball

Whitworth rallied from four runs down to take a lead Friday afternoon, but Pacific Lutheran scored three runs in the seventh inning for an 8-5 win and eliminate the host Pirates at the NCAA Division III baseball tournament at Avista Stadium.

After the Lutes hit three straight one-out singles to load the bases in the seventh, Connor Cantu hit a grounder to Whitworth’s Joel Condreay. He muffed the ball and the Pirates only got one out while Cole Johnson scored from third.

Ben Welch followed with a two-run single to right field.

“That’s baseball,” Whitworth coach Dan Ramsay said of Condreay’s play. “We wouldn’t be in the position we were in if it wasn’t for Joel all year. It’s also why we love the game because every once in a while, you get a break.”

Friday evening, Pacific Lutheran (29-18) took a 3-2 win over Texas-Tyler (32-19) to advance to Saturday’s championship round at noon against Trinity (38-7), from Texas, which beat Texas-Tyler 14-2 in the early game Friday.

For Whitworth, the loss ended the storied career of senior Jeremy Druffel, who led the Pirates in most offensive categories.

“Towards the end of the game you felt it kind of coming to an end, especially down three,” Druffel said. “I don’t know if its hit me yet. But it’s definitely weird to think about all coming to an end.”

The Lutes went up 3-0 in the top of the first inning on RBI singles from Tyler Thompson, Landon Packard and Kory VanderStaay.

After PLU added a run in the third inning, Whitworth finally got its bats going in bottom of the inning. Daniel Casanova scored on a fielder’s choice and throwing error on a grounder by Jordan McGowan. Another run scored on a bases-loaded walk to Zach Thibault. Freshman infielder Tyler Bailey (Mt. Spokane) then smashed a base hit to left field that scored Condreay and JT Phelan (East Valley) to tie the game at 4.

“Finally I got a pitch I thought I could hit,” Bailey said, “and I hit it. It felt great.”

Whitworth took a lead in the fourth inning when McGowan knocked in Garrett Hughes, but the Lutes tied the game in the top of the fifth.

Pacific Lutheran’s Garrett Brown, who pitched seven innings on Thursday, pitched a scoreless 1 2/3 innings for the save on Friday.

“You’ve to tip your hat to a guy like Garrett Brown who came back from 92 pitches” Thursday, Ramsay said. “It says something about the kid. It says something about his heart.”

But Ramsay said he couldn’t be more proud of his team after it won the second-most wins in program history and made its second straight appearance in the NCAA tournament.

“I feel like every year we keep bumping up that bar a little bit higher,” he said. “We have every intention to go win a national championship. I think the more we play deep in the playoffs, the more our guys start to believe that and realize that … it’s within in our grasp.”