Bucknell University Athletics
From the AD's Desk -- Special Baseball Edition
6/10/2008 8:00:00 AM | General
June 10, 2008
Note: Check back later in the week for the remainder of our summer edition of "From the AD's Desk."
Greetings Bison Fans!
On the flight to Tallahassee last week for the NCAA Baseball Regionals, I made the mistake of pulling out the offensive statistics of Florida State, the No. 4 national seed and Bucknell's opening-round opponent. The numbers were simply astounding, and it wasn't the air turbulence that made me a little bit weak in the stomach. The batting averages of the Seminoles' starting lineup looked like something out of Little League: .466, .406, .392, .381, .380. Their weakest starter entered the tournament hitting .315! And their best hitter, catcher Buster Posey, is simply one of the two or three best hitters in America (who a few days later would be taken No. 5 overall in the Major League draft). As a team, FSU led the nation in hitting at .350.
So you can imagine my nerves when I took my seat in the beautiful press box at Dick Howser Stadium as senior Mathew Wilson climbed the mound for the challenge of a lifetime. In the bottom of the first inning, Wilson retired the first two batters, then smartly walked Posey before allowing a double. With runners at second and third, the large crowd now alive, and the cleanup hitter lugging his 18 home runs to the plate, Wilson faced his first test of the night. But after falling behind in the count 3-1, Wilson painted the outside corner for a strike, then induced a fly ball to get out of the jam. The Bison supporters exhaled. Would we be able to get through eight more innings of this tension?
But then a funny thing happened. So much attention was given to Florida State's lineup that everyone forgot that Bucknell traveled south with a potent lineup of its own. And in the second inning it was the Bison offense that began to put on the pressure. Four hits, a walk and an error led to three runs, and suddenly Wilson had a bit of breathing room. He breezed through the second, third and fourth innings, while the offense exploded for four more runs to give us a stunning 7-0 lead.
A seven-run lead was hardly secure against a team averaging almost 10 runs per game, but this night belonged to Wilson. It reminded me in some ways of the movie For Love of the Game, when Kevin Costner's character, Billy Chapel, pitches a perfect game in Yankee Stadium in the last start of his career. The film takes you almost batter by batter, often in slow motion, through Chapel's quest for immortality. The scene playing out before our own eyes in Tallahassee had a similar Hollywood feel.
Wilson worked around a leadoff double in the fifth, getting a strikeout and a tapper back to the mound after FSU had a man at third and one out. Posey was stranded after starting the sixth inning with a single, and in the seventh, Wilson struck out the .406 hitter with men at second and third to escape another jam.
After he retired the 2-3-4 hitters in order in the eighth, I tried to fight off the thoughts of, "wow, we're really going to do this!" There were still three huge outs to find.
The bottom of the ninth began with a ground out to short, then an infield single. The designated hitter worked the count full before lofting a fly ball to Dane Grandizio in center field for the second out. Then at 9:44 p.m., on Mathew Wilson's 153rd pitch of the night, Grandizio chased down Ohmed Danesh's long fly ball to center, and one of the biggest upsets in college baseball history was complete!
There were many valiant performances that went into this victory, and head coach Gene Depew and pitching coach Scott Heather deserve special congratulations for having the team so well-prepared to play on such a daunting stage. After the game, coach Depew was quick to point to the team's terrific defense, and to catcher Shawn Hirsch for calling a great game behind the plate in sweltering heat. Dane Grandizio will always remember going 4-for-5 in a victory over Florida State.
Every player on the roster merits kudos for the victory, but Mathew Wilson's pitching performance is one that will go down in history at Bucknell. Remembering that the great Christy Mathewson once pitched for the Bison (although legend has it that it would be a few more years after leaving Bucknell before Mathewson perfected the control that would one day lead him to the Hall of Fame) and that there have been four no-hitters and seven one-hitters thrown by Bucknell pitchers, I dare say that Wilson turned in the best-pitched single game in school history.
Given the situation (the NCAA Tournament), the setting (on the road in front of nearly 5,000 fans) and the opponent (the best-hitting team in the nation, one that will be playing in Omaha this weekend), it has to be considered the best ever. Remember, that very same Florida State lineup went on to score 17, 24, 17 and 16 runs in its next four games at the regional. And befitting Bucknell's mission, the mound performance came from a student-athlete who made the ESPN the Magazine Academic All-District Team this year and graduated with a degree in economics with a GPA over 3.5. Young men like Mat Wilson and Jason Buursma, a First Team Academic All-American and a national player of the year finalist, really epitomize the Bucknell scholar-athlete ideal.
The shutout was one of the best examples of what Bison athletics is all about that I can recall during my time as Bucknell's athletics director. It was an incredibly gritty performance against all odds, where the team came in believing in its abilities, then executed them to perfection on the field. We shocked the world with the greatest win in Bison baseball history! Christy Mathewson must still be smiling!
One last note on the baseball trip: our stay in Tallahassee was made all the more special by the class and hospitality shown by the Florida State team, administration and fans. I still get chills thinking about the standing ovation given to our guys by the FSU fans at the end of the game. Everyone in our program will be rooting for the Seminoles at the College World Series next week.
More to come later this week. For now, GO BISON!!
John P. Hardt
Director of Athletics & Recreation
Previous installments of "From the AD's Desk"
-- August 15, 2005
-- September 26, 2005
-- December 1, 2005
-- April 6, 2006
-- August 3, 2006
-- August 28, 2006
-- October 22, 2006
-- March 26, 2007
-- May 25, 2007
-- August 8, 2007
-- November 20, 2007
-- March 30, 2008
