Box Score
TYLER, Texas – In the regular season, McMurry University's baseball team won 38 percent of its games at 15-25. UT-Tyler won 89 percent of its regular season contests at 33-4. But percentages and records were thrown out the window Saturday as the War Hawks stunned the No. 5-nationally ranked Patriots on their home turf at Irwin Field and took a 5-4 victory to knock UT-Tyler out of the American Southwest Conference Baseball Tournament.
Not only had McMurry lost the best-of-three series to begin the ASC playoffs in both 2009 and 2010, but the War Hawks had managed just three victories in the 11 previous meetings with Patriots prior to the series.
However, this weekend, the past didn't matter to McMurry. A 6-4, 13-inning win Friday night, and a 5-4 victory Saturday left UT-Tyler empty handed, nixed the Patriots' chances at a three-peat as ASC Tournament champs, and possibly threw a wrench in their NCAA Regional Tournament hopes depending on the outcome of the championship round of four ASC teams next week in Richardson.
In a season destined to be McMurry's first losing one in school history since bringing back the program in 1996, the War Hawks pulled off the improbable. The Norman Dale-coached Hickory Huskers, the 1980 U.S.A. Hockey team, and the 1969 New York Jets all come to mind. Well, maybe that's going a little overboard.
McMurry head coach
John Byington did, however, compare his War Hawks to the 2011 Green Bay Packers in front of supporters at a booster club meeting April 6. The Packers of course needed two victories to clinch a wild card spot in the NFL playoffs this season, which they won, and then took an unprecedented road to the Super Bowl winning three consecutive road playoff games before finishing off the Pittsburg Steelers in the Super Bowl Feb. 6.
On April 6, when Byington made the comparison, his War Hawks were 5-7 in the ASC West Division and in fifth place, which would have kept McMurry out of the ASC postseason for the first time in eight years.
However, McMurry responded by winning six of its last nine league games to clinch the fourth-place spot in the west, only to be slated against an all too familiar opponent with an all too likely outcome: a first-round exit.
After walking home three consecutive runs in the bottom of the ninth inning Friday night to allow UT-Tyler to knot the score at 4-4, McMurry showed moxie by keeping the Patriots scoreless for the final four innings, and
Bradd Baker, in his 47th at bat of the season delivered his first RBI's of the season with a two-run double to key the 6-4, extra-inning win.
Saturday, serving as the “home” team in the second game of the best-of-three series, McMurry trailed 4-2 in the seventh when
Brian Durst and
Jake Mullin each delivered RBI singles to knot the score at four. The Patriots had a runner on second base with just one out in the top of the eighth when Mullin came in from rightfield to pitch. The senior righthander recorded two consecutive lineouts to keep the score tied.
In the eighth, McMurry's
Dylan De Leon doubled with two outs before
Austin Brooks reached on an error by UT-Tyler allowing De Leon to score the go ahead run.
The Patriots made it interesting in the top of the ninth putting two runners on with one out before Mullin struck out Jake Beam and David Ring grounded out to end the ball game.
The victory means that McMurry will advance to the ASC Baseball Championship round of four teams in Richardson on the campus of UT-Dallas. Concordia-Texas will be McMurry's first opponent Friday at 11 a.m. to kickoff the round.
For a team that won just 15 games in the regular season, maybe all McMurry needed was a little Green Bay Packer pressure.
