Derrick Shields looked all around the stands following the game.
As his Indiana University of Pennsylvania teammates and their families continued to mill about on the USA Baseball Training Complex field in Cary, N.C., Monday afternoon, the Crimson Hawks sophomore pitcher still couldn’t locate his father, Kevin.
“It’s funny … everyone is talking to their parents, but my dad went back to the hotel,” Shields said of his father, who pitched for IUP in 1992 and is now The Club at Nevillewood’s director of golf instruction. “I called him and I’m like, ‘What are you doing? He’s like, ‘I went back to the hotel. I thought you guys were leaving.’”
On the contrary, Derrick Shields and the Crimson Hawks have assured they will be sticking around at least a couple more days at the NCAA Division II College World Series by securing the greatest victory in school history to date.
Shields, a Mt. Lebanon native, started and pitched 5⅓ strong innings, as fifth-seeded IUP’s bats came alive with a pair of eighth-inning runs to upset No. 1 Central Missouri, 4-3, in an elimination game and keep its run at a national championship intact.
It was the first College World Series victory in school history for the Crimson Hawks (39-17), while the nation’s top-seeded Mules (52-10) limped out of Cary in the wake of a pair of upset losses.
“Any team is good, but it definitely feels a little more special given the fact we lost the first game and we just battled back,” Shields said. “We grinded that game. There’s not much more I can say. I’m just really happy about it. We’ve got more games to play. We want to win this thing.”
IUP advances to play No. 4 seed Point Loma, which dropped a 13-6 decision to defending national champion and No. 8 seed Angelo State Monday evening. First pitch for the elimination game between the Crimson Hawks and Sea Lions is slated for 1:30 p.m. Wednesday.
Point Loma handed IUP a 2-1 loss Saturday in Game 1 of the College World Series.
“Now with two games under our belt, we’ve played on this big stage and the pressure is wearing off and it’s being put on the other teams,” said IUP fifth-year senior second baseman Harrison Pontoli, a Beaver graduate. “We’re just hot right now and we’re still going to keep going.”
Pontoli led the Crimson Hawks at the plate, going 2 for 4 with a double, RBI and run scored.
Andrew Sicinski plated Pontoli for the game-tying run with an RBI single in the eighth inning off of Central Missouri reliever Jake Wilson. The designated hitter was 2 for 4 with an RBI.
IUP junior first baseman Brady Yard’s sacrifice fly later in the eighth inning off of Wilson allowed Ricardo Aponte to score from third base for the game-winning run.
“All year we’ve been in that same situation and that magic eighth inning just comes about,” Pontoli said. “We know we can do it and it just started piece by piece and pitch by pitch and finding pitches we can hit, drive and get on base and move guys over. That’s what we did.”
For much of the afternoon, though, Shields settled into a pitcher’s duel with Mules starter Jack Scott.
Carter Young opened the scoring for Central Missouri with a two-RBI double in the second inning, but that would be all the nation’s top offensive team would be able to muster off of Shields.
Central Missouri led the nation with a .355 batting average as a team, 745 hits, 126 home runs and an average of 10.8 runs per game.
“That lineup was very tough,” Shields said. “Credit to them, they put up some great at-bats, but I made some good pitches in the end and was able to execute.”
Trailing 2-0, IUP cut its deficit in half in the bottom of the second inning when David Kessler reached base on a throwing error by Mules third baseman Jacob Steele, which allowed Yard to score the game’s first run against Scott.
Then in the fifth inning, Pontoli’s double down the right-field line off of Scott tied the score at 2-2.
“Our team, we just were resilient today and we didn’t give up,” IUP third-year coach Steve Kline said. “They pitched really well. That starter for them, Scott, he threw the ball well, kind of dominated us all game and then we just hung in there, played some solid defense at times and got some big outs and then we got some clutch hits there at the end. It’s amazing, a game of inches, how things can change quickly.”
Scott conceded four runs, three earned, on four hits with 10 strikeouts and just one walk in 7⅓ innings. The tough-luck loss dropped his record on the season to 5-2.
Shields, meanwhile, was on the hook for just two runs. The right-hander scattered five hits with three strikeouts and one walk.
Reliever Jason Madrak earned the win for IUP. He allowed two hits in 1⅓ scoreless innings, while Bryce Devan picked up the save with a scoreless ninth inning.
“We just, again, picked a bad day to have a bad day offensively,” Central Missouri coach Kyle Crookes said.
Despite earning a no-decision, Shields said the chance to pitch in the College World Series provided some vindication.
While his brother David is currently a senior at Mt. Lebanon, a Miami recruit and expected to be selected in the early rounds of the Major League Baseball first-year player draft later this month, Derrick Shields said he was somewhat of an unheralded recruit coming out of high school.
“It is tough to put into words,” he said. “It’s crazy. I’m so proud to represent IUP. (Crimson Hawks pitching coach) Kyle Nicholson and Steve Kline they were one of the few coaches that gave me a chance out of high school. They believed in what I saw in myself and that’s why I couldn’t be more proud to represent IUP and them and this community.
“I just think we’re just getting started,” he added. “This is a really special group here and I think we’re going to get even better.”
John is a copy editor and page designer at the Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at jsanta@unionprogress.com.