NJCAA D3 World Series: Game One Goes to MCC

TYLER, TX – The last time Manchester CC head coach Chris Strahowski needed a pitcher from the bullpen in a crucial situation, lefty Tyler Kapushinski threw a pair of shutout innings in Holyoke to help keep the Cougars in the winners bracket of the Region 21 tournament.

MCC was holding a precarious 4-3 lead in the fifth inning of the 2010 NJCAA Division III World Series opener Saturday morning when Strahowski called on Kapushinski with a runner on second and nobody out. The situations were similar, with higher stakes this time, but the end result was the same.

Kapushinski stranded the inherited runner and kept Riverland CC (33-11) off balance long enough for the MCC bats to put away a 9-5 victory at Mike Carter Field.
Taylor Riley was 2 for 4 with three RBI and Joey Allison had a double and scored three runs for MCC (29-21), who will face the winner of the Tyler JC (43-12) vs. Gloucester CC (39-2) game at 5 pm Eastern Sunday.

Tyler Kapushinski (2-0) picked up the win with three strong innings of relief before turning the game over to A. J. Rataic, who retired the final six batters – three on strikeouts – to record the save.

“He has been doing it all year,” Strahowski said of Kapushinski. “Toward the beginning of the season, we kind of let him feel his way out and as the year progressed, he got more important innings and his performance didn’t change. So he is going to be in that situation a lot.”

The Cougars won their first game in the national tournament for the first time in three consecutive trips under Strahowski.
Kapushunski worked around the potent Devil lineup (60 home runs in 44 games) before Rataic hammered them with the hard stuff.

“Rataic pounds the zone and throws strikes, the complete polar opposite to what Kap does,” Strahowski said. “He (Kapushinski) got a full look at their guys and it took that one at-bat for them to catch up. They had a couple foul tips to the mitt, so you could tell they weren’t quite up to the velocity (of Rataic) yet, so it was perfect.”

MCC starter Adam Scanlon was lifted after the first three Riverland batters reached in the top of the fifth inning.

“We wanted to get him a little deeper obviously,” Strahowski said of Scanlon, who wiggled out of bases loaded jams in both the first and second innings without giving up a run. “But he ran up his pitch count pretty high early, so rather than let him sit out there and try to get us through six or seven we got him and will be able to use him later in the tournament.”

Scanlon was staked to a 4-0 lead, but Riverland (33-11) cut it to 4-3 through 4 ½ innings on Jeff Huth’s two-run homer and an RBI single by Kyal Williams.
“I felt really loose,” Kapushinski, who gave up a pair of runs on four hits, said. “I haven’t thrown in a while, but I was glad to come in and help Scany out. I was talking to him earlier and he said he was struggling, but he went pretty deep.”

The Cougars added a pair in the fifth on a Kevin Wodatch sacrifice fly and an Alec Brown RBI single, and then added single runs in the sixth, seventh and eighth. MCC scored in every inning but the first and fourth.

“The run support was huge,” Kapushinski said. “Nine runs? You can have a lot of pitching mistakes with nine runs.”

Vin Sommo got to Riverland ace Brian Voight (7-4) with a scorched double down the third base line to drive in the first MCC run in the bottom of the second inning. Kevin Wallace (2 for 3, walk, 2 RBI) made it 2-0 with an RBI single while A. J. Lowers (1 for 2, RBI, R, SB, 3 BB) and Riley made it 4-0 with RBI singles in the third.

“It was a great team effort,” Rataic said. “We pretty much got runs in every single inning, which makes it easier for the pitchers to go out there and get the hitters back into the dugout.”

The game endured 20 walks, but neither team committed an error while flashing solid leather – including three double plays turned by the Manchester infield and two 5-3 double plays by Riverland.

Kapushinski was cautiously optimistic about facing either Tyler or Gloucester, who many consider to be two of the better teams in the tournament.

“The other team is going to have a win too, but we’ll just play our game and see what happens,” Kapushinski added. “I’m sure we’ll do fine.”

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