Birmingham-Southern’s season ends with a homer to UW-Whitewater in the DIII College World Series

The storybook season is over for the Birmingham-Southern College baseball team. Now the program is over.

Sam Paden hit a home run – his second of the game – in the bottom of the ninth inning to give Wisconsin-Whitewater an 11-10 victory in an elimination game at the Division III College World Series in Eastlake, Ohio . The Warhawks will play Salve Regina on Monday for a chance to go to the tournament semifinals.

UW-Whitewater previously won the Division III championship in 2005 and 2014.

Birmingham-Southern gained national attention when the baseball team advanced to the DIII World Series, outliving the life of its current institution. The private liberal arts college in Birmingham, Alabama, with an enrollment of 1,300 students, has closed due to financial difficulties after 168 years of existence. The school closed its doors on May 31, the same day the Panthers opened the tournament.

UW-Whitewater opened the scoring in the second inning with their infielders leaving Panthers starting pitcher Carter Tyus. Paden and Dominik McVay hit back-to-back home runs, each working 3–1 counts before going deep. The Warhawks added another run on an RBI single from Matt Scolan to build a 3-0 lead.

The panthers roared back

McVay followed with a great catch in the third, diving down the warning track in left-center field to rob Ty Truett of an extra strike at first. However, Birmingham-Southern came right back with Eli Steadman’s two-point shot off Jack Hagen to make it a 3–2 ball game.

In the fourth, Jackson Webster led off with a home run to tie the score. That was the start of BSC’s jump on Hagen with a double by Ian Hancock, triple by Charlie Banks and single by Jakob Zito that led to two more runs and a 5–3 lead.

Let the Eastlake slugfest begin

However, the Warhawks punched back, tying the score on a two-run homer by Scolan. And what turned into a slugfest in an elimination game was wide open.

Birmingham-Southern exploded for four runs in the fifth inning, started by a catcher interference call, three straight hits and a hit by pitch. That chased reliever Cade Hansen, but Max Huseboe came in to allow an RBI single by Zito.

The Panthers got another run in the sixth for a 10–5 lead, but UW-Whitewater scored runs in the seventh and eighth—both powered by Scolan’s hits—to cut into the deficit.

That set up first baseman Eli Frank to launch a two-run homer off Hansen McCown to tie the score at 10–10. The Warhawks threatened to take the lead, following with two straight singles. Andy Thies hit a deep drive to left center, but Steadman caught it on the warning track to end the inning.

Birmingham-Southern lost Friday’s opener to Salve Regina, putting them in danger of elimination with another loss. However, the Panthers defeated Randolph-Macon in a thrilling comeback win Saturday to stay alive in the tournament. The win provided another opportunity to advance for a rematch with Salve Regina, but that won’t happen now.

An exciting story comes to an end

Birmingham-Southern College, founded in 1856, has struggled for the past two years to restore its endowment. Unfortunately, legislation for a $30 million loan that would have kept the school open failed to pass the Alabama State House. In March, the college decided to close.

As head coach Jan Weisberg informed his players that school would close, the Panthers went 19–6. Several of the athletes have found new programs where they can play baseball, while Weisberg and his staff are working to help others make such arrangements. Some decided to quit baseball once the season ended. And 10 players from the team graduated.

“At first, there was a lot of sadness,” Cole Steadman, a member of the 2019 team that played for the Division III title, told The Associated Press. “We were pretty devastated to hear the school was closing, but to see the community come together was special.”