Wright State baseball: Raiders’ tourney dreams end on walk-off homer

FAIRBORN — Wright State didn’t have any guarantees, of course, that it would’ve beaten Milwaukee for the Horizon League championship on Sunday, May 22, if it could’ve held on to its ninth-inning lead and forced a winner-take-all rematch on its home field.

But the defending champs would’ve loved to have had the chance to find out.

The Raiders, plagued by spotty offense all season, made the most of their final three outs, turning a 3-1 deficit into a 4-3 lead.

Senior Patrick Fultz started the uprising with a leadoff line-drive single. The next two batters reached, and after Hunter Warren was hit by a pitch to force in a run, Cam Gilkerson knocked in two more with a single on a screamer into centerfield.

The Raiders went with sophomore

reliever Malachi Paplanus, who has four of the team’s nine saves this year, to close out the victory in the bottom of the ninth (Milwaukee was designated the home team Saturday).

But he gave up a walk, and then tourney MVP Joey Spence hit a missile over the right-field fence to give the second-seeded Panthers a 5-4 victory before 580 dejected fans.

“We’ve been through a lot. This team, this culture, is built on fighting to the last out. And that’s what we did,” said Fultz, a Springfield Shawnee grad.

“We fell short of the goals we set before the season, but I’m so proud to be part of this team.”

The Raiders, who went 2-2 as the top seed in the tourney and finished 27-28, had to play short-handed — first-team all-league centerfielder Andrew Duncan and coach Alex Sogard were ejected in the third-inning in a move that left the rest of the team bewildered.

Duncan, who led the team in hits with eight, nonchalantly protested a called strike and then apparently said something more while walking to the dugout after whiffing on the next pitch.

Seeing him get tossed lit a fuse under Sogard, who raced to home plate and furiously waved his arms and pointed in the face of the ump. About 15 seconds into his Earl Weaver tirade, the four-time league coach of the year was tossed — his only ejection of the season.

The other two umps tried to intervene, and, with Sogard incensed and animated, one of them held up two fingers, meaning the coach would have been suspended for the title game, too (Duncan also would have had to sit out because ejected players automatically are benched for a second game).

Assistant Jordan Chiero, who took over for Sogard, said: “I was coaching third base, so I didn’t hear the interaction between Duncan and the umpire. From my point of view, if you’re a player, you have to show up an umpire to get tossed — especially in a championship game.

“He’s one of our best players and heart-and-souls of this team. To toss him like that without looking at the umpire — I think Sogie, I don’t want to speak for him, but it was Sogie protecting one of his guys.”

Fultz agreed.

“He’s a very reserved guy — about as reserved as a head coach as you’ll find. When he does get fired up, one, he means it, and, two, it’s for a reason.”

The Raiders stood stunned for a couple of minutes after Spence’s homer before dragging themselves off the field. Going up against a 25-31 team, it wasn’t supposed to end this way.

They lingered in the dugout during the Panthers jubilant celebration, some moved to tears.

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of. They put it all out there. It hurts most for the seniors,” Chiero said.

“This whole year has been tough. We’ve had our ups and downs. But we never once doubted the character of the guys in that room.”

Chiero’s voice quivered as he spoke. The Raiders have hosted the last eight HL tourneys but have lost three on their home turf.

“We told the guys, when you feel like this, it’s the price you pay for having love and a purpose in life and it doesn’t go your way. It’s not so much that we lost — only one team gets to hold up the trophy — but it’s the last time we get to be together.”

He was pointing to the senior class, especially Fultz, a four-year starter and perennial all-league selection.

“He’s one of the best players to ever play here. More importantly, he’s one of the best humans I’ve ever been around,” Chiero said.

“He’s the guy who makes us go. We don’t have captains, but if we did, he’d be our captain.

“You wish you had more time with them. It’s a special group. It won’t be the same without them.”