Birmingham-Southern College baseball: How the Panthers overcame school closures to reach the D3 College World Series

The best story in college baseball might belong to a school that won’t ever offer another class.

Birmingham-Southern College is effectively closed, with its last semester over and the entire operation planning to shut down within days. Birmingham-South baseball is very much open for business with a Division III championship in its sights.

It’s a bittersweet race for the Panthers, who happen to be led by Drake LaRoche, the son of former MLB first baseman Adam LaRoche. The elder LaRoche backed out when the White Sox asked him to limit how often he brought Drake, then 14, into the team’s clubhouse.

This is just one layer of a remarkable story unfolding at the Division III level heading into the College World Series.

Here’s a look at Birmingham-Southern’s storybooks and why the school is closing its doors.

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The Birmingham-Southern College baseball playoff race

Birmingham-Southern fell early in the Southern Athletic Association tournament, losing two games to Rhodes College. But all the Panthers have done since then is win.

The NCAA D-III Regionals saw Birmingham-Southern go 3-0 with two wins over host Transylvania University and one over Spalding University. The Panthers then took care of business in the super regionals with two wins over Denison College.

Birmingham-Southern finished the regular season with 13 wins in its last 14 games, including nine straight to close out the schedule. The team is 32-14 entering Saturday.

The Panthers’ conference tournament struggles obviously didn’t do much to disrupt their momentum, despite so much weight on the team’s shoulders with the impending school closure.

Birmingham-Southern’s offense is led by Jackson Webster’s 13 home runs and Ian Hancock’s 1.028 OPS.

On the mound, no one made more of an impact than LaRoche. The junior right-hander leads the team with 81.1 innings pitched, has a 3.21 ERA with 66 strikeouts and two complete games through 13 starts.

Success for Birmingham-Southern isn’t exactly a new pattern, as the Panthers reached the Division III College World Series championship series as recently as 2019. Still, putting together that kind of run in the days before the official close of school is quite the feat.

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Why is Birmingham-Southern College closing?

The Birmingham-Southern baseball team was informed on March 26th that the school will officially close on May 31st. It happens to be the date of the first game in the NCAA Division III University World Series.

Birmingham-Southern has struggled with financial problems since 2007, with the aggressive spending practices of the school’s former president, David Pollick, shrinking the college’s endowment. The financial crisis of 2008-2009 also took a hit to the school’s endowment. Both were cited by Birmingham-Southern as factors in the school’s financial decline.

Despite fundraising efforts in recent years, Birmingham-Southern has been unable to raise enough money to give the school a viable path forward. The final blow was a $30 million loan that failed to pass the Alabama state legislature. Without that money, Birmingham-Southern made the tough call to close its doors.

Birmingham-Southern was founded in 1856 and took its current name in 1918.

Division III College World Series Schedule

The Division III College World Series begins Friday, May 31, with Friday, June 7 as the last possible closing date. Just like at the Division I level, the College World Series will feature eight teams.

While Birmingham-Southern doesn’t know its own schedule yet, the Panthers will get some much-needed rest amid the flurry of coverage about their run and the school’s shutout.

The schedule also means that Birmingham-Southern could play on the last day of the school’s existence and continue to play once the school’s operations have ended. It’s not easy being the last team in a field of eight, but a remarkable run can become a truly unforgettable story if the Panthers can pull off a surprise win.