Birmingham-Southern keeps magical and inspiring season alive with D-3 World Series win

EASTLAKE, Ohio – The team without school will not give up.

Birmingham-Southern is still swinging.

Playing now despite school being closed for good, the Panthers kept their hopes of winning a national championship alive Saturday night with a thrilling 9-7 comeback win over Randolph-Macon in Division III World Series.

Jackson Webster hit a two-run homer in the ninth inning to give Birmingham-Southern, a team that quickly captured the attention of sports fans across the country with their feel-good story, a victory bordering on the surreal.

“Baseball wonder, huh?” Webster said. “The storybook is not over.”

The Panthers squandered a 4-0 lead and fell behind 7-4 before scoring three runs in the eighth — getting back-to-back RBI singles off pinch-hitters in the rally — to tie it.

Then came the ninth and a moment seemingly straight out of a Hollywood script or a Disney movie.

Andrew Dutton walked before Webster, who hit a two-run homer in the first, took a nasty swing on the first pitch. It was so bad and out of character that he walked out of the batter’s box and beat his chest while apologizing to manager Jan Weisberg.

Webster didn’t miss the next pitch.

Connecting on a hanging curveball, he sent his homer over the left-field wall to spark a wild celebration on the field and in the stands at Classic Park.

As he walked to third and was greeted at the plate by his delirious teammates, a rowdy group of the school’s Sigma Chi fraternity brothers who had kept the faith when things looked bleak danced down the aisle.

It was another memorable moment in a season full of them for Birmingham-Southern and a team bound by adversity.

“The real mess,” said Weisberg, whose 17th season at the school has presented challenges he never could have imagined. “The fight between these guys is the story of the night.”

It’s a story that gets better every day and is chronicled by a documentary film crew that has managed to capture the team’s unbridled jubilation.

Webster said the Panthers can feel the eyes on them along with the support of people who can relate to their emotions playing at a school they loved but is now gone.

“It’s a tough pill to swallow,” Webster said. “We have nothing to fall back on, so we take the field feeling like we have nothing to lose. And the team with nothing to lose is hard to beat, which is why I think we were so calm today because of all the adversity we went through.

“And it’s pretty cool to have all the cameras around.”

Birmingham-Southern, which lost the 2019 national title game, advanced to the double-elimination tournament and will play the loser of Salve Regina and Wisconsin-Whitewater on Sunday.

Based on the wild scene outside the charter buses, it might be hard for anyone at Birmingham-Southern to get much sleep.

After losing their opener to Salve Regina on Friday, the same day Birmingham-Southern officially closed its doors for the first time since 1856 due to financial difficulties, the Panthers faced a make-or-break situation for to save his season – and the school. heritage — walking.

Unlike Friday’s game, when they fell behind 7-0 before rallying, the Panthers jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first on Webster’s two-run home run and Charlie Banks’ solo shot – both balls hit a mark beyond left center. pitch wall advertising a free car wash for Lake County Captains fans.

But Randolph-Macon caught them in the seventh and then took a three-run lead in the eighth when the Panthers had two wild pitches and things began to unravel to the point where it looked like Birmingham Southern’s season and program were over both.

Weisberg thought the worst.

“Can’t you help but feel that—this is how it’s going to end?” he said. “But with everything this team in particular has been through, with everything we’ve had hanging over our heads, I’ll admit it happened to me for a brief moment between innings.

“I started thinking what am I going to say? Will I hold it together? And I was like, stop, stop.”

His misfit team restored his faith with a comeback he’ll never forget.

Neither did Weisberg’s 82-year-old father, Jan, who joked that he expected nothing less from his son’s team.

“Never a doubt,” the elder Weisberg said with a wink.

There’s no margin for error, but the Panthers haven’t felt any pressure in months. This is easy after what they have been through. Once the school’s decision was made, the BSC players made their own decision to finish strong.

Under Weisberg’s steady guidance, Birmingham-Southern’s summer boys have been playing free for months, free from mistakes, after learning in late March that their school was closing.

Baseball brought them together and pulled them through what some on the team described as the loss of a family member.

It’s been an emotional ride for players, parents, alumni, faculty and anyone connected to the liberal arts college at Birmingham-Southern since the announcement in March that a $30 million loan from the state of Alabama would not come through and that closure was necessary.

“At first, there was a lot of sadness,” said Cole Steadman, one of several players on the 2019 team who came out to support this special edition of the Panthers. “We were pretty devastated to hear the school was closing, but to see the community come together was special.”

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AP College Sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports