Three Old Dominion Athletic Conference teams will be going to the NCAA Division III baseball tournament, but Roanoke College will not be one of them. The Maroons were left out after losing to Shenandoah, 8-4, in 10 innings in Sunday’s ODAC tournament final at Lynchburg’s City Stadium.
The baseball field is 58 teams large in 2018. Forty schools earned entry like Shenandoah as automatic qualifiers from their respective conferences. Two teams were picked as a true independent, while R-MC and VWU account for two of the 16 at-large choices to the field. The entire tournament will be played under double-elimination format with regional action in either one of three six-team sites or five eight-team pods. All regional hosts were pre-determined.
This marks the eighth instance overall and fifth time in the last six years that multiple ODAC teams have earned position in the national field. Shenandoah (34-10) runs its streak of national fields to five straight seasons, while Randolph-Macon (31-7-1) is in for the second time in three years. Virginia Wesleyan (28-14) returns to the bracket for the first time since 2006.
The Maroons, who went to the Division III World Series last year, could have clinched a return trip with another ODAC championship. RC made the final with a 3-2 win over Virginia Wesleyan in the semifinal. Dean Hermanson drove in the winning run in the top of the 13th inning.
That set up an RC-Shenandoah showdown on Sunday, and again the game went into extra innings as Shenandoah scored four runs in the top of the 10th inning for the 8-4 win.
Down 4-0, Jack Howard, Gavin Kandrick, and Dean Hermanson all recorded singles to load the bases with one out in the bottom of the sixth before Cody Shell hit a double down the left field line to score Howard and Kandrick to make it 4-2. Will Smith then brought in Hermanson with an RBI groundout. And RC tied it when Sean Guida hit a two-out single to plate Shell to make it 4-4.
Shenandoah used a leadoff homer from Keegan Woolford to start the 10th inning and take a 5-4 advantage. SU continued the inning with a pair of singles, a walk and a sacrifice fly to close out the scoring at 8-4.
Eli Sumpter and Shell both went 3-for-5. Roanoke finishes the season with a 31-11 record which is the second most wins in school history.
RC pitcher Diego Meneses, infielders Hermanson and Howard and outfielder Guida were all named to the All-Tournament team.