National champs! North Greenville wins program’s first D2 baseball championship
Landon Powell insists that he’s had more talented teams during his eight seasons as baseball coach at North Greenville University. But he also believes that none of those teams were better than the one he has now.
Friday night at the USA Baseball National Training Complex, the Crusaders validated that belief by becoming national champions.
Pitchers Reece Fields, Nate Roof and Tristen Hudson flirted with trouble in virtually every inning, but they struck out a combined 16 batters and limited the opposition in a 5-3 victory in the Division II title game against Point Loma.
The top-seeded Crusaders had almost as much trouble crossing the plate as the second-seeded Sea Lions, with their first two runs coming on infield outs before finally building a cushion with a pair in the seventh and one in the eighth to complete their sweep through the double-elimination Division II world series without a loss.
“They’re not only the best team I’ve had, but they’re the best team in the country right now,” Powell, the former USC Gamecocks catcher, said after leading his team to the school’s first national title of any kind since NGU joined the NCAA in 2001. “No one can take that away from them.
“We always say we want to be the last team standing at the end of the year, the last team holding the trophy, and here we are.”
Unlike their semifinal win against West Chester a night earlier, when they started with a bang on a grand slam by Pat Monteith, the Crusaders’ championship effort got rolling with barely a whimper.
They jumped out to a 2-0 lead after three innings, scoring both runs on infield ground outs — by Jordan Holladay in the second and Marek Chlup in the third.
NGU (54-10) had a chance to break the game open when it loaded the bases with nobody out in the fourth on singles by Josh Senter and Jax Cash, sandwiched around a walk to Holladay.
But the Crusaders failed to score, thanks to a spectacular play by Point Loma left fielder Jack Malone, whose diving catch of a sinking Ethan Stringer line drive prevented what would have been a bases-clearing hit.
Point Loma’s offense responded quickly after NGU was unable to capitalize in on its opportunity.
Otto Kemp, who has gotten on base in all 61 of his team’s games this season, extended his streak by leading off the top of the fifth with a home run.
The Crusaders limited the damage, however, when series MVP Fields retired Sea Lions catcher Easton Waterman on a comebacker to strand a pair of runners. Point Loma (51-10) left eight runners on base through the first five innings.
“Whenever I get into that trouble with runners on second and third, that’s actually when I settle down,” said Fields, a West Columbia product who struck out eight of the 16 hitters NGU pitching rung up in the game. “That’s when I truly lock in and make my most important pitches.”
The Sea Lions, which earned their spot in the championship game by beating Rollins 2-0 earlier in the day, left 11 on base in all, including six in scoring position. NGU pitchers didn’t record a 1-2-3 inning until Roof struck out the side in the top of the eighth.
By that time, NGU had extended its lead to a more comfortable 4-1 on a wild pitch and a sacrifice fly by John Michael Faile. The Crusaders added another run in the eighth on a single by Cash, his third of the game, that scored Monteith.
The insurance proved to be important after Point Loma’s Baxter Halligan hit a two-run homer off Hudson in the ninth. But Hudson recovered to strike out Jakob Christian for the final out, setting off a joyous dogpile on the infield.
“We’ve got a great offense, but we couldn’t get a whole lot going,” Powell said. “We had to manufacture runs, which is different for us. We usually kind of bang. But tonight, sac flies, bunts and ground balls to the infield is how we had to do it.”
Scores: North Greenville baseball wins D2 title
Sunday, June 5
No. 1 North Greenville 3, No. 8 West Chester 1
Tuesday, June 7
No. 1 North Greenville 18, No. 5 Angelo State 3
Thursday, June 9
No. 1 North Greenville 8, No. 8 West Chester 5
Friday, June 10
No. 1 North Greenville 5, Point Loma 3
NGU baseball under Landon Powell
The Crusaders were 8-35 in 2014. University of South Carolina Hall of Famer Landon Powell took over as coach ahead of the 2015 season.
- 2015: 29-25*
- 2016: 35-16
- 2017: 38-15
- 2018: 46-10*
- 2019: 45-11*
- 2020: 19-5-1 (COVID year)
- 2021: 34-13*
- 2022: 54-10*
*denotes NCAA DII tournament appearance
This story was originally published June 10, 2022 at 10:13 PM.