Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
CARY, N.C. \u2014 If West Chester<\/a> was going to go down in its winner-take-all, showdown against Tampa on Saturday in the Division II baseball championship series, coach Mike LaRosa was determined to go down with his best.<\/p>\n So after falling behind by a run in the first and getting into trouble in the top of the second, LaRosa decided to play his ace in the hole by bringing in left-hander Julian Costa<\/a> \u2014 even though he\u2019d thrown 104 pitches in Game 1 two nights earlier<\/a>.<\/p>\n The plan made sense. But it didn\u2019t work out the way the Golden Rams hoped. <\/p>\n After a strikeout, Costa gave up a two-run double to the Spartans\u2019 Brayden Woodburn that brought in those inherited runners, then allowed three unearned runs in the top of the fourth to put top-seeded West Chester into a hole it couldn\u2019t escape in an 8-4 loss.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought he was sharp. He just left a couple of balls up is really all it was,\u201d LaRosa said of Costa. \u201cBut there was definitely some fatigue there.\u201d<\/p>\n Junior righty Drew Simpson, who started and pitched the first 1\u2153 innings, took the loss after allowing three runs on three hits with three strikeouts and two walks. Costa allowed four hits and those three unearned runs in 2\u2153 innings. <\/p>\n The four pitchers who followed Costa \u2014 Nick Cugino, Kyle Rogers, Luke Raho, and Landen Rozich \u2014 kept Tampa\u2019s potent lineup in check and helped keep things within reach.<\/p>\n West Chester (48-12) began chipping away in the fifth when Carter Rust drove home Tanner Donati with a two-out single. Two innings later, Donati led off with a homer to right before Christian Michak and Rozich, who went 4-for-4, followed with singles. They only got one more run out of the rally on a sacrifice fly by Rust, but they still held hope.<\/p>\n \u201cWe never felt like we were out of it at any point in that game,\u201d senior first baseman Austin Stalker said. \u201cIt\u2019s just kind of the mentality we\u2019ve had all year. We all came into the dugout and were like, \u2018We\u2019ve done crazier things in the ninth.\u2019 You never know.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: Kyle Lazer aims to finish what he started with West Chester baseball<\/a><\/p>\n It looked as if something might happen when Tampa center fielder Jordan Evans tripped and fell on the warning track as he was about to catch a fly ball off the bat of Rozich. It went for a triple to start the inning. Rust then singled for his third RBI of the game to bring West Chester within four, but series Most Outstanding Player and winning pitcher Luke Fikar shut the door.<\/p>\n \u201cBaseball is a crazy game,\u201d Stalker said. \u201cSometimes it\u2019s rewarding. Sometimes it\u2019s not. Today is one of those days where it kind of rips your heart out.\u201d <\/p>\n The top seeds in the eight-team tournament, which have combined for eight of the last 14 national championships, split the first two games of the best-of-three final. Tampa (51-9) won the opener on Thursday in 10 innings while West Chester got even on Friday. The Spartans\u2019 win Saturday clinched their third straight national title<\/a>.<\/p>\n Although the disappointment of falling one game short of the third title in program history was still raw, Donati said he and his teammates were proud of what they accomplished this season.<\/p>\n \u201cThis group of guys is special. That\u2019s what makes the ending so hard,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Added LaRosa: \u201cThey just played better than us today. That doesn\u2019t mean it wasn\u2019t a successful season, ultimately. I think our players will realize that and will remember all the special moments.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min CARY, N.C. \u2014 If West Chester was going to go down in its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[125744,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-298964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-ncaa-division-ii-baseball-championship-bracket-west-chester-tampa-score","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}