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By Jordan Holland
For The Intelligencer
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — After a heart-breaking 6-4 loss to Wisconsin-Stevens Point in Sunday's World Series elimination game, Marietta College baseball coach Brian Brewer summed it up best.
"That's baseball, man," Brewer said. "It'll break your hearts."
For the second straight day, the Pioneers played well, just not quite well enough to win. They lost 7-5 to Salisbury in 11 innings Saturday before falling to the Pointers in Sunday's do-or-die matchup. Their season ends with a 44-7 record and the program's 23rd trip to the World Series.
"We obviously would anticipate scoring a few more runs than what we did," Brewer said. "We got beat. We got beat (Saturday). We got beat (Sunday). Tough time of year. It's going to take awhile to get over it and swallow it. We didn't play poorly. We played well, played aggressive."
Marietta (44-7) entered the World Series as the top offense in the country with a team batting average of .384. Trailing 6-3 in the top of the eighth, the Pioneers had a golden opportunity with the bases loaded and nobody out, but could only muster one run when Brett Carson grounded into a double play.
Pointers reliever Austin Syvertson got an inning-ending strikeout to strand a runner at third, then fanned the side in the ninth after allowing a leadoff single to Trent Castle.
"Austin's done a great job for us all year," said Wisconsin-Stevens Point coach Nat Richter.
"By that point (in the eighth) we're just trying to minimize damage. The double play was huge. The review added some drama to it. For him to strike the next guy out, yeah, that was a big moment."
Carson was out on a bang-bang play at first, prompting Brewer to ask for a review, but the call was upheld.
"The double play was pretty key," Brewer said. "Brett put a good swing on it, had a good at-bat. I thought we fought like heck to get to that point. Kids showed a lot of courage."
Gino Sabatine started and went 5 1-3 innings for MC. He allowed three runs on seven hits with two walks and two Ks. The Pointers got to him in the first on Anthony Tomczak's RBI single, but Sabatine settled down after that and put up zeroes from innings 2-5.
"Gino's had an up-and-down kind of year," Brewer said. "Coming into the year he was our No. 1 guy. He had a couple rough starts against some really good teams early on.
"We knew he was going to have a big outing for us at some point. I'm thrilled to death that he saved his best for last. I thought he threw really well today. I'm super proud of the way he competed and how much he stepped up."
That allowed Marietta to take the lead with a three-spot in the top of the sixth. With two outs, Damian Yenzi, Carson and Drew Holderbach all had run-scoring knocks to make it 3-1.
The Pointers rallied back in the bottom of the sixth to chase Sabatine. Bradley Comer's two-run double tied it up, but he was stranded on second when Carson came on in relief and got a flyout and a strikeout.
However, Wisconsin-Stevens Point got to Carson in the seventh. With the bases loaded and one out, Payton Nelson, who had a game-high three hits, punched a two-run single up the middle to give his team a 5-3 lead. Later, Tomczak had another RBI single to stretch the lead to three.
Marietta got one of those back in the eighth, but they let a big opportunity slip away.
"Other teams had a lot more to do with it than we do," Brewer said, crediting opposing teams for preventing the Pioneer bats from taking over. "I was really impressed with some of the positionings teams had. I thought they had us down pat. Their pitch plans were really good to our hitters. That's just the way it is this time of year. You're typically not throwing up a ton of runs."
The 2022 Marietta Pioneers had 14 seniors on their roster, most of whom will move on after Sunday's loss.
"They've got a special place in my heart," Brewer said. "It's a special group of guys. I think everybody just expects that we do this all the time, and it's not that easy. There's a lot of hard work."
Yenzi, who along with Castle and Carson had two hits apiece, had equally high praise for his head coach.
"We call him dad," said the fifth-year senior from Pittsburgh. " He really is that guy. He's a second dad to me. He's helped me develop as a baseball player and as a man. Take everything I've learned here, and I'll take it on to whatever I do the rest of my life."
As for the Pointers, they improved to 42-9 and will have to beat Salisbury twice to advance to the best-of-three championship series.
"We weren't surprised or scared or nervous or anything like that," said coach Richter, who watched starting pitcher Caleb Krommenakker go 5 2-3 innings. "That's been the M.O. of our team all year. Really happy to come away with a victory. Marietta's a really good program."