The 11 seniors on the Hillsdale College baseball missed graduation ceremonies Saturday in order to make some more history.
The Chargers advanced to Championship Sunday in the GLIAC Baseball Tournament for the first time ever thanks to a 9-6 win over Malone University in Saturday's semifinal game.
Hillsdale awaits the result of Saturday night's Grand Valley State-Walsh game to know who it plays and when.
After falling behind 3-0 in the first inning, the Chargers showed the kind of resolve and talent they've used all year in order to go to a place no team in program history has. They did it thanks to an offense that has taken its place as among the best in GLIAC history.
Thanks to home runs by freshman Colin Boerst and senior Tad Sobieszczanski, the Chargers have now tied the GLIAC single-season record for team home runs in a season with 65.
The offense got unleashed in the fifth inning with four runs, two coming courtesy of Boerst's second home run, an opposite-field shot that kickstarted the team's lethal bats. Later in the inning, Luke Ortel singled, stole second and scored on a Chris McDonald single to make it 4-3.
The Pioneers came back to take a 6-4 lead in the seventh inning. But this Hillsdale team does not quit, as was shown by its late inning comeback.
Sobieszczanski led off the eighth by crushing his 11th home run of the season – into a strong cross wind – to make it a 6-5 game. Alex Walts later laid down a perfectly executed suicide squeeze bunt play, on which McDonald scored on a delayed break for home plate to tie the game at 6.
The Chargers took the lead for good in the ninth, starting with a one-out double by senior Michael O'Sullivan that hugged the right-field line. Ortel was intentionally walked, then Sobieszczanski delivered with the go-ahead single through the left side.
McDonald added to his career record RBI total with a single up the middle against a drawn-in infield, plating Sobieszczanski and Ortel.
Senior Mitchell Gatt came on to record the save in the ninth.
Senior pitcher Jacob Gardner got the win in relief of freshman starter Chris Stewart. After giving up three runs in the first, Stewart settled down nicely, going 6 2/3 innings with four runs allowed. It was the second-longest outing of the season for Stewart.
Gardner went 1 1/3 innings, picking up his fifth victory of the season.
Ortel was 2-for-4 with 2 runs scored, his third multi-hit game of the GLIAC Tournament. McDonald and Sobieszczanski each went 2-for-4 and each drove in three runs.
In less than 24 hours, Hillsdale's all-time total of GLIAC Tournament wins went from zero to two. What a run by a team that believes. And it isn't done yet.
PHOTO CREDIT: Marcus Thatcher