Point Loma Nazarene University was down to their final three outs.
After losing Game 1 of the Super-Regional to CSU-Monterey Bay they needed to take a pair on Saturday to stay alive and reach the College World Series. They trailed the Otters 7-5 in the 9th inning. Staring down the end of their season they had the perfect solution:
Send in the spark plug.
Hunter Otjen ... the senior from Point Loma High School and the emotional leader of the club ... launched a 2-run home run to left field, looking an awful lot like Carlton Fisk in the 1975 World Series hopping sideways down the 1st base line as he watched it soar into the Pacific Ocean. With the game tied and a sold out Carroll B. Land Stadium suddenly rocking there was no chance the Sea Lions could lose.
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It just took a little while to win. PLNU took that game 10-8 in 13 innings then torched CSUMB 7-1 in the finale, winning the West Region for the 2nd time in three years and punching their ticket to Cary, NC and the D-2 CWS. How they pulled it off will be the stuff of legend on The Point (they might even write a shanty about it).
The Sea Lions actually trailed the morning game 7-3 when Eric Smelko belted a 2-run homer to cut the lead in half and set up Otjen's game-tying blast. The teams traded runs in the 12th inning but PLNU took the lead for good in the 13th on a sacrifice fly by Bryson Hashimoto and an RBI single from Jack Malone. The final outs were recorded by Otjen, the outfielder who is also a pretty good pitcher.
There would be no emotional letdown in the nightcap. The Sea Lions did all the damage they needed to in the monster 4th inning. With two outs and the game tied 1-1, Joey Nicolai lined a double down the left field line to bring home Malone and light the fuse on an epic 2-out rally. The next four batters went like this:
Eric Smelko = 2-run HR
Esai Santos = HR
Scott Anderson = 1B
Jake Entrekin = 2-run HR
PLNU scored six runs with two outs and that was more than enough for Ray Cebulski, who was brilliant over 8.0 innings of 1-run ball. Fittingly, it was Otjen on the mound for the final inning, striking out the final batter of the game to seal a 7-1 win. They are one of the last eight teams alive. The double-elimination College World Series starts June 1.
