Photo by Bob Sanford
BELTON–With the tying run standing on second base and UMHB clinging to a one-run lead on Saturday afternoon, UMHB head coach Mike Stawski turned to freshman Robert Sanford with the game on the line.
“I talked with Coach [Cooper] Hake in the eighth,” Stawski said. “He’s like, ‘Hey, just so you know, Robert is locked in. There’s no fear there. There’s no anxiety. He wants the baseball.’ It was a no brainer for me then.”
Sanford, in his second collegiate appearance on the mound, got the job done. He induced a groundout from Concordia’s Jake Townsend that slammed the door shut on the Tornadoes’ comeback, giving UMHB a 7-6 victory and the ASC series sweep.
History was made in the exceptional performances on Friday and Saturday. The trio of victories improves UMHB’s overall record to 6-0 this season, marking the second time in program history (as a Division III institution) that The Cru has begun a season with six consecutive victories. The first? 2008, when UMHB won 10 straight to start the year.
It also marked just the fourth sweep of Concordia in UMHB’s Division III history, with previous series sweeps coming in the 1999, 2000, and 2022 seasons.
Additionally, it is the first time in nine seasons that UMHB has swept its conference-opening series, with the last such instance coming when The Cru took three games from Howard Payne on Feb. 21-22, 2014.
“Every weekend you want to sweep,” Stawski said. “But you’re really just trying to win the Friday night game and then trying to win game one on Saturday. But at some point, it starts to creep into your mind when you’re up four late in the game like, ‘Man, we might get three of these things [this weekend].’
“I said it before the game to the guys; Winning in baseball is really, really hard. It’s so hard to win. The fact that those guys came out, and were really the better team all weekend was pretty awesome to watch.”
The series opened with a 10-5 victory in the opener on Friday night, highlighted by Riley Bender’s 2-run homer in the third inning that broke a 3-3 tie. The third inning was key for The Cru, who trailed 3-0 entering the frame. Tyler Betts followed an error and a hit-by-pitch with a single to center field, which drove in Chris Perez from second base. Blake Gonzalez soon tagged from third base on a flyout, cutting the Concordia lead to one, and with two outs, Rhett Grosz’s double scored Betts. That led to Bender’s first home run of his UMHB career, and UMHB held the lead from that point on.
Andrew Acierni tossed six innings on the mound, and picked up his second victory of the season. Jacob Haynes and Quint Mullen combined to close the final three innings, and give UMHB its first conference win.
In game two on Saturday afternoon, Concordia once again scored first, putting up a run in the top half of the first inning. But UMHB answered with three runs apiece in the third and fourth innings, taking control of the contest en route to a 6-2 win. Betts and Grosz each went 3-for-4 at the plate, while Rahul Champaneri picked up the win on the mound.
The series finale was highlighted by Sanford’s save, along with another key third inning. In this instance, UMHB trailed 1-0 through two innings, but answered the call in a four-run third. Betts led off with a double, and a walk and hit-by-pitch soon loaded the bases with nobody out. Grosz came through with the go-ahead hit, doubling as Cameron Talburt and Betts both came around to score. With The Cru leading 2-1 later in the inning, Elijah Rodriguez came up with an RBI single, scoring Bender and Grosz from second and third.
Even after Concordia cut the deficit to 4-3 in the fifth, UMHB countered with a three-run sixth. The Tornadoes’ final surge came in the ninth, as a leadoff home run from Zach Seigrist and an RBI groundout from Brandon Goynes put Concordia within one. But the Crusaders emerged with the victory and the sweep, one of only two ASC teams—UT-Dallas being the other—to begin league play with a 3-0 record.
Series Notes
- Through its first six games, UMHB is batting .388 as a team. That mark ranks second in the ASC, only trailing UT-Dallas (.405).
- UMHB has recorded 11 or more hits in five of its six games thus far.
- Blake Gonzalez tallied at least one hit in each of the series’ three games, going 4-for-8. His on-base percentage of .636 ranks fifth in the ASC.
- Rhett Grosz went 7-for-13 in the series, and improved his hit total for the season to 12. That ranks fifth in the league, and is two hits shy of the league lead.
- Starting pitchers James McGlumphy (junior) and Andrew Acierni (senior) each improved to 2-0 on the mound this season. For each, it marks the first time in their careers that they have begun a season with a 2-0 record.
- Head Coach Mike Stawski now has 40 career conference victories in five seasons leading the program.
Up Next
UMHB resumes non-conference play with a 6:00 p.m. road duel at St. Thomas (5-5) in Houston on Tuesday night. ASC play picks back up on Friday with a three-game road series at Howard Payne (5-4).
