Outlook: One of Div. III's storied programs starts a new championship era, with third-year head coach Barry Craddock leading his alma mater's program into the NCAA Div. III Tournament for the first time. Wooster was one of the 18 Pool C (at-large) selections by the NCAA committee when the 60-team championship field was released on Monday afternoon. Wooster is headed to Lloyd Hopkins Field in Alton, Illinois for the Webster University (Missouri) four-team, double-elimination regional. Wooster (30-14) plays Bethel University (Minnesota) (33-9) on Friday, May 20 at 3:30 p.m. ET/2:30 p.m. CT. Host and fifth-ranked Webster (37-6) takes on Crown College (Minnesota) (30-13) in Friday's first game at 12 p.m. ET/11 a.m. CT.
Schedule (Please Note This is the Updated Schedule):
• Game 1 | Friday, May 20, 2 p.m. ET/1 p.m. CT – Webster vs. Crown
• Game 2 | Friday, May 20, 5:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. CT – Wooster vs. Bethel
• Game 3 | Saturday, May 21, 3 p.m. ET/2 p.m. CT – Game 1 Loser vs. Game 2 Loser (elimination game)
• Game 4 | Saturday, May 21, 6 p.m. ET/5 p.m. CT – Game 1 Winner vs. Game 2 Winner
• Game 5 | Saturday, May 21, 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT – Game 3 Winner vs. Game 4 Loser (elimination game)
• Game 6 | Sunday, May 22, 2 p.m. ET/1 p.m. CT – Game 4 Winner vs. Game 5 Winner
• Game 7 | Sunday, May 22, 45 minutes after game 6 – Game 6 Winner vs. Game 6 Loser (if necessary)
Field Address: Please use 98 Arnold Palmer Rd. Alton, Ill. 62018 for GPA navigation.
Ticket Information: Tickets are a flat-rate of $5 and are cash only.
Media Coverage: Webster will provide a livestream and live stats for all games of the regional.
New Era: Craddock is in year three leading Wooster's program, and this is his first NCAA Tournament as head coach. However, he is no stranger to Wooster's success at the national level, having served as assistant coach from 1996-99 and 2008-19. Wooster has made three trips to the NCAA Div. III "World Series" with Craddock on staff, headlined by advancing to the national championship game in 1997 and 2009. As a player, Craddock was a member of a Mideast Regional championship team as a senior, and he appeared in 52 games and earned seven saves, ranking third on both statistical categories upon graduation.
Div. III's Elite: Wooster is making its 32nd Div. III Tournament appearance this week, and the Scots sport a 70-67 all-time record in NCAA postseason games. Wooster trails Marietta College (40), Ithaca College (39), and Eastern Connecticut State University (36) when it comes to all-time tournament appearances. Wooster last made the national field in 2019, the first year of the four-team regional-super regional-national championships format. The Scots won the Wooster Regional before bowing out against Heidelberg University in the Heidelberg Super Regional. Wooster has made the national championships (Div. III "World Series") six times – 1989, 1994, 1997, 2005, 2009, and 2018. There, Wooster has two national runner-up (1997, 2009) finishes.
A Look at Last Week's Action: Wooster advanced to the finals of the North Coast Athletic Conference Tournament for the sixth straight time. Senior center fielder Ben Gbur (Hilliard, Ohio/Hilliard Darby) smoked a three-run home run and earned a three-inning save during a 5-3 win over Wittenberg University on May 12. No. 19 Denison University beat Wooster 11-3 in the May 13 winners' game, then the Scots bounced back with a 5-3 win over DePauw University. Senior left fielder Dominic Stilliana's (Youngstown, Ohio/Boardman) third-inning leadoff home run fueled the Scots in the elimination game. First-year third baseman Nick Pett (Perrysburg, Ohio/St. John's Jesuit) and junior pinch hitter Dane Camphausen (McLean, Va./Landon School) hit back-to-back doubles to give Wooster the lead in a 5-4 win over Denison in game one of the championship round, then the Big Red took the winner-take-all game 8-1.
A Look at All-Time Series: Wooster and Bethel have met eight times before – all on the programs' spring break trips – with the Scots winning each time. The teams last played on March 23, 2019 in Wooster's Florida trip finale. Wooster won that contest 15-6. All-American alumnus Dan Harwood went 4-for-5 with five RBI and two runs scored, while alumnus Brian Murray earned the win after allowing three runs on 10 hits in five innings. Wooster and Webster have met twice before with the Scots winning both times. The most recent meeting came on the 2014 spring trip, where Wooster won 9-7. Prior to that, the teams first met in a 2005 regional game won by Wooster 7-5. Wooster and Crown have never played each other before.
The Machine: Senior shortstop Tyler Chumita (Hilliard, Ohio/Hilliard Darby) is third nationally with 77 RBI, a total tied with three-time American Baseball Coaches Association All-American and W Association Hall of Famer Rick Sforzo for the most in single-season program history. Sforzo drove in 77 in 50 games in 1986. Chumita got there in game 44 on Sunday, with a solo home run that tied game one of the NCAC Tournament Championship Round at three in the seventh inning. Chumita, with 25 more RBI than any other player in the NCAC, has 21 multi-RBI games on his 2022 line, headlined by a seven-RBI showing in game two of a doubleheader with DePauw on April 2.
Chasing the 75/75 Club: Gbur scored for the 70th time this season during the NCAC Tournament and there have only been six 70-run seasons in program history. Michael Wielansky (St. Louis, Mo.), the 2018 ABCA Div. III Position Player of the Year and 18th-round draft pick that year by the Houston Astros, scored a Div. III-leading 76 runs during Wooster's run to the Div. III "World Series" in 2018. Gbur's next hit will be his 70th on the year. Should he get to 75 hits and 75 runs, Gbur would become just the fourth Scot (Trevor Urban, 1997, 82 hits, 79 runs; Sean Karpen, 2009, 97 hits, 77 runs; Wielansky, 2018, 79 hits, 76 runs) to have 75 hits and 75 runs in a single-season in program history. Urban's 1997 run total and Karpen's 2009 hit total are the program's single-season records.
The Thief: Senior right fielder Ben Hines (Farmington, Minn./Lakeville South) ranks third in the NCAC with 27 stolen bases on the season. He became the first Scot since Karpen in 2008 to hit the quarter-century mark for a season. Hines' 27 stolen bases are the seventh-most in single-season program history. Should he get to 30, he would be the first Scot since 2004 All-American Matt Miller to get that many in a year.
Utility Ace: Sophomore Eli Westrick (Ashland, Oregon/Ashland) showed a lot of promise towards the end of the 2021 season and has blossomed into one of the Scots' top all-around players. Westrick took on a featured utility role this year as one of the team's front-end starters in addition to his duties at second base. He is second on the team with a .369 average (45-for-122) and has worked his way into the everyday lineup, even while pitching, after starting the year not batting in games on the bump. Westrick's 3.68 ERA is tops on the team with at least 20 innings pitched. He sports a 5-1 record with two saves in 51 1/3 innings.
Whatever It Takes: Junior Dean Brown (Kensington, Md./St. Andrew's Episcopal School) is the everyday starter at third base. He sports a .303 average (46-for-152) heading into the regional tournament. Brown stepped up in the NCAC Tournament, getting the game ball against Wittenberg in what was just his second pitching outing of the year. Brown held the Tigers to three runs on seven hits in five innings, then returned against Denison three days later for a scoreless inning of relief. Gbur, who has seen an expanded role as a pitcher this year, made three appearances on the mound during the NCAC Tournament, recording the save each time. Gbur worked 5 2/3 innings of shutout baseball during that stretch with seven strikeouts.
Not Since 1944: No Wooster pitcher had struck out at least 15 batters in a game since 1944, that is until sophomore right-hander Corey Knauf (Vienna, Va./Bishop O'Connell) fanned 15 Williams College hitters during a 16-4 win on March 25. Knauf, pitching in Chain O' Lakes Stadium, former spring training ballpark of the Cleveland Guardians, logged the third-most strikeouts in program history and the most since Stan Partenheimer's 19-strikeout game in 1944. Knauf struck out the side in the first and second innings, and had seven strikeouts through two frames due to an Eph batter reaching via a passed ball. The strikeout haul climbed to 10 in the third inning, then Knauf struck out two in the fifth, two in the sixth, and Nate Orluk watched a pitch zoom by for a called strike three than ended the game in the seventh.
Another Masterpiece: Knauf nearly did something no Wooster pitcher has ever done on April 6 – log a 15-strikeout game and a no-hitter. Knauf carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning of Wooster's 10-0 run-rule win over Hiram College. Hiram center fielder Curtis Caithaml laced a leadoff single up the middle in the seventh for the Terriers' lone hit of the game. Knauf, who logged his first career shutout, struck out five and faced just four batters over the minimum.
Mr. Electric: Junior left-hander Christian Johnston (Sewickley, Pa./Quaker Valley) was named to D3baseball.com's Team of the Week for games played April 25-May 1 after retiring all 12 batters he faced in a span of three outings. Johnston, who earned a win and two saves on the week, fired two innings of six-up, six-down ball in Wooster's 13-5 win over the University of Mount Union on April 26. Two days later, he set down the Purple Raiders in order in the bottom of the 10th inning in the Scots' 10-8 win. He entered game two of the Denison twin bill with the tying run on deck and slammed the door shut on the Big Red by setting down all three batters he faced in the Scots' 10-6 win. Johnston's 20 appearances rank second on the team.
"Run Baby Run": If there was a contest for most interesting walkup in Div. III, Pett would be in the running, as "Run Baby Run" by Caspar Babypants is his song. Pett ran his way to D3baseball.com Team of the Week honors for games played April 18-24. Pett's week opened with a walk-off pinch-hit single in a 5-4 win over Oberlin College on April 20, then he earned the save in the Scots' 5-3 nightcap win, recording the final two outs in his collegiate pitching debut. Pett went on to earn a spot in the starting lineup for the rest of the week at second base, where he went 7-for-12 with seven runs, two doubles, a triple, and his first collegiate home run over the three-game weekend slate.
NCAC All-Conference Team Announced: Chumita captured the NCAC Player of the Year award, marking the 18th time in conference history that award has resided with a Wooster player. He is the program's first NCAC Player of the Year since three-time All-American Jamie Lackner in 2017. Gbur joined Chumita as a repeat first-team All-NCAC selection, senior designated hitter Alex Gasper (Pittsburgh, Pa./Upper St. Clair) and Westrick debuted on the All-NCAC team as second-team picks, while Hines is now a two-time all-conference performer after earning honorable mention status.
Thomas Part of Region's Elite: Just 13 NCAA Div. III baseball players from programs in Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio were named to the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Academic All-District® Team this spring, and senior catcher Michael Thomas (Minneapolis, Minn./Washburn) was one of them. The two-year starter is an economics major, who logged a breakout game in a 15-1 win over Allegheny College on April 23, finishing 4-for-4 with four RBI, two doubles, two runs scored, and a home run. Other key highlights for Thomas include a go-ahead three-run home run in an 8-6 win over regional rival Case Western Reserve University on April 13 and a go-ahead hit during game two of a key NCAC sweep over Wabash College on April 16. Thomas examined the relationship between firms that engage in corporate social responsibility by implementing environmental, social, and governance scores and their corporate emissions for his Independent Study project. He also spent two summers as an intern with Seattle CityClub and gathered and analyzed data for a future shelter location with Simpson Housing Services in Minnesota.
The Go-To Times Two: Juniors Ryan Sullivan (Amesbury, Mass./Berwick Academy (Maine)) and Ethan Samangy (Hudson, Ohio/Hudson) are two of the regulars who appear out of the Scots' bullpen. Sullivan's 21 appearances are tops on the team, and he sports a 2-0 record with a 3.75 ERA in 24 innings of work. Samangy is 2-0 with one save over 25 innings of work. He has appeared in 18 games and has a 3.60 ERA. Samangy appeared in six straight games from May 4 to May 13, allowing just one run over 8 2/3 innings during that stretch.
The Ace: Senior Mitchell Reardon (Liberty Twp., Ohio/Lakota East) has held down the No. 1 pitching spot for the Scots this year. He is 5-6 with a save and a 4.60 ERA over 62 2/3 innings. Reardon's best outing was six innings of one-hit shutout baseball against Sewanee: The University of the South on March 12. The left-hander struck out 10 in that start.
Awards: Wooster baseball players have earned the following awards for the 2022 season:
• All-NCAC: Tyler Chumita (Player of the Year, first-team), Ben Gbur (first-team), Alex Gasper (second-team), Eli Westrick (second-team), Ben Hines (honorable mention
• CoSIDA Academic All-District®: Michael Thoma
• D3baseball.com Team of the Week: Nick Pett (games played April 18-24), Christian Johnston (games played April 25-May 1), Tyler Chumita (games played May 2-8
• NCAC Athlete of the Week: Mitchell Reardon (pitcher, March 14), Corey Knauf (pitcher, March 28), Dean Brown (player, April 18), Tyler Chumita (player, May 9
• NCAC All-Tournament Team: Dean Brown, Tyler Chumita, Ben Gbur, Dominic Stilliana