The Madison College WolfPack and the Western Oklahoma State College Pioneers were caught in a back and forth eleven inning battle that saw the WolfPack prevail in the top of the of 11th inning, 6-5 as the WolfPack picked up their second World Series win. Catcher Jake Page put the WolfPack on top in the final inning when a grounder to short was booted and Treysen Vavra scored on the play. Mitchell Arens silenced the Pioneer bats in bottom of the frame as the ' Pack walked away with the thrilling win at David Allen Memorial Ballpark in Enid, OK. The 44-14 WolfPack play the winner of tonight's Jones County Community College and Kellogg Community College matchup tomorrow night, June 1 at 7:00 PM.
Joel Effertz started on the bump for Madison and surrendered a first inning run before he started to settle in. Effertz recorded all of his seven strikeouts through the first four innings and the WolfPack defense did their best to aide the starter before the Madison offense put up three runs in the top of the fifth inning to take the 3-1 lead. With the 3-1 advantage in tow, Effertz kept on sailing, pitching three more scoreless innings before the Pioneers from Western Oklahoma tied the game with two runs in the bottom of the ninth inning. The pesky WolfPack wouldn't roll over as they scored two more runs in the top of the first extra inning frame to take the 5-3 advantage after the top of the tenth. After Page walked and Jordan Chardukian sacrificed him over 90 feet on a perfect bunt, shortstop Garret Novinski followed with an RBI single up the middle that plated Page for the first run of the inning and the 4-3 lead. Novinski, who had reached second on the play, then scored on a sharply hit ball to right off the bat of Ryan Freitag. The right fielder made a great play on Freitag's ball for the second out of the inning, but a poor throw to catch Novinski tagging up to third resulted in the speedy shortstop scoring easily for the 5-3 lead.
Reliever Andy Stochl, who got the WolfPack out of a major jam in relief of Effertz in the ninth inning to preserve the tie, started the bottom of the tenth inning for Madison. Stochl ran into trouble from the beginning as Western was able to plate two runs to again tie the game at 5-5 and the see-saw battle continued. After recording the final out off the inning all knotted up at five, the WolfPack displayed their resiliency when Page reached on an error on a grounder to the shortstop with runners on second and third, and Treysen Vavra scored the unearned run to give the WolfPack the 6-5 lead in the top of the eleventh.
Armed with the 6-5 lead heading into the bottom of the 11th inning, Arens showed his true colors and picked up the win in the topsy-turvy game. Madison blew leads in the ninth and tenth innings but walked away with the 6-5 win in extras thanks to the efforts of timely hitting and some spectacular pitching efforts for their second NJCAA DII World Series win.
Effertz threw eight spectacular innings, scattering five hits and allowing three runs (two earned) while striking out seven in his start. Stochl, who kept the WolfPack in the game with a brilliant effort in the ninth inning, threw two innings of three hit, two run ball with two strikeouts before giving way to Arens. Arens tossed one inning of no run ball in picking up the win, and the Madison College bats did their part too. As a team, they belted out eleven hits and were paced by Andrew Wasmund and Tyler Brusky who both finished the evening 3-for-5. Wasmund also had two RBI, and Jake Page and Garrett Novinski also recorded crucial two-out RBI in the thrilling WolfPack win.
After the marathon of a game that lasted four hours and 11 minutes, and started at 8:07 PM; Madison College has a much needed day off before taking on the winner of the Jones County CC and Kellogg CC matchup scheduled for 7:00 PM tonight. Madison is back at it and looks to their continue ways down here in Enid, OK with a 7:00 PM game on Wednesday, June 1.
