Release courtesy of Johns Hopkins Athletic Communications

GAME ONE

BALTIMORE, MD – For the second time in seven days, the Johns Hopkins baseball team earned a walk-off win the NCAA Tournament as Damian Brown scampered home on a throwing error by Claremont-Mudd-Scripps with two outs in the bottom of the 10^th to give the Blue Jays a 16-15 victory in game one of the Super Regional at Babb Field on Friday afternoon.
 
With the win, the Blue Jays (37-9) are one win away from the Division III World Series for the second consecutive year and the fifth time since 2019.  Game two in the best two-of-three series is tentatively scheduled for 5 pm today.
 
Trailing 15-14 after the Stags' Bryce Didrickson's solo home run in the top of the 10^th, the Blue Jays had the bases loaded after Jacob Harris was hit by a pitch with one out and two runners on.  After Tegin Maloney got Luke Baker swinging, his wild pitch allowed Shane Keough to scamper home with the tying run.
 
Shortly after with Brown on third, another Maloney offering skipped away from catcher Max Pemberton, who quickly gathered the loose ball as Brown came down the line.  As Brown doubled back to third base, Pemberton's throw to pick him off skipped away from third baseman Charlie Kalil and Brown raced home with the game-winning run.

The two-run 10^th for the Blue Jays marked the seventh lead change of a game that featured 31 runs, 30 hits and five errors in a game played in less-than-ideal conditions on a chilly, rainy afternoon.
 
Johns Hopkins appeared to be in control entering the eighth inning with a three-run lead (14-11) and just six outs away from a win.
 
A Pemberton run-scoring single, an RBI-double by Blaise Hehrer and an Alex Henderson sacrifice fly – things were even at 14.
 
Both teams loaded the bases in the ninth, but Jeff Shue popped out to end the Stags' threat in the top half of the inning and Clay Hartje's line drive to shortstop closed the bottom of the ninth.
 
The Didrickson home run came on the sixth pitch of the 10^th inning, but William Hancock came on in relief after the Stags got a man on with a walk and he worked his way out of trouble to set the stage for the Blue Jay walk-off.
 
Things were wild from the start as the first four innings solved nothing with the teams splitting 10 runs with the Stags scoring in three of their first four at bats and the Blue Jays using a four-run third to help account for the 5-5 tie.
 
The Blue Jays trailed 3-1 entering the bottom of the third but scored four times with two outs to quickly turn the two-run deficit into a two-run lead.  An Alex Shane RBI-single plated Harris and Lukas Geer followed two batters later with a home run to left.
 
The Stags answered in the top of the fourth with a Rider Gordon two-run home run that evened things at 5-5.  The Gordon home run was the first and three the Stags would hit in a two-inning span as they added a Pemberton solo shot and a two-run Josh Jacobs blast in the fifth to grab an 8-5 lead.

As quickly as the Stags used the five-run spurt to go up 8-5, the Blue Jays answered with a five-spot courtesy of three long balls in the bottom of the fifth to go up 10-8. 
 
William Jaun launched a two-run home run to left center just four pitches into the inning to trim the deficit to 8-7 and Hartje went over the wall in right two batters later to even things up.  With two outs and Keough aboard after walking, Brown snuck one over the wall in left to give the Jays the two-run lead.
 
A three-run Claremont (34-14) sixth was followed by a four-run Blue Jay rally in the bottom of the inning to give the Blue Jays the 14-11 lead they would eventually carry into the eighth.

Inside the Box Score – Johns Hopkins
• Shane paced the Blue Jays at the plate as he was 4-for-5 with three runs scored and two RBIs; he also walked once to reach base in 5-of-6 plate appearances.
 
• Harris, Jaun, Geer and Brown all collected two hits to fuel a 15-hit attack.  The Blue Jays also drew nine walks and had four hit batters to account for 28 base runners in the victory.
 
• Hancock got the win as he worked a scoreless inning after entering with one on and nobody out in the 10^th.

GAME TWO

BALTIMORE, MD – The Johns Hopkins baseball team had it won. And then the Blue Jays didn't.

Claremont-Mudd-Scripps was then clearly going to win it. And somehow the Stags didn't.

Finally, more than three hours after the second game of the Baltimore Super Regional began, it was the Stags who walked off – literally – a 10-9 win over Johns Hopkins to force a deciding game that is scheduled for 11 am on Saturday morning.
 
Tied 9-9 going into the bottom of the 10^th, the Stags used two walks and a single to left field with one out to load the bases and then Dillon Martin drew a four-pitch walk to plate Bryce Didrickson with the game-winning run in the 10-9 victory.
 
The 10^th-inning drama was made possible by an even more dramatic ninth, which saw the Blue Jays grab a 9-8 lead on a Shane Keough RBI double to right center that chased home Hamilton Adams with one out. Keough was stranded at second and that left the door open for Claremont.
 
Martin was in the middle of the ninth-inning rally that forced extra innings as he raced home from first on a Blaise Heher RBI-double to the corner in left. Heher was down to his final strike before lacing his double and had a chance to end it when he tried to score on a Keegan Cabrera single to left, but Lukas Geer cut him down at the plate to send it to extras.
 
The Blue Jays got a runner on in their half of the 10^th, but stranded Geer at first before the Stags won it in the home half of the inning.
 
The ending seemed destined from the start as the teams went blow for blow throughout game two, which followed a 16-15 Blue Jay walk off in game one.
 
The teams traded early runs as the Stags got a run in the bottom of the first when Didrickson opened the game with a walk and later scored on a double play, while the Blue Jays came right back in the top of the second to tie things up on an Adams run-scoring single up the middle.
 
The Blue Jays (37-10) grabbed their first lead of the game an inning later as they pushed across a pair with two outs. After Claremont's Tegin Maloney retired the first two batters of the inning, Luke Baker worked a walk and Alex Shane took Maloney's first offering over the wall in left center to give the Blue Jays a 3-1 lead.
 
The back-and-forth continued in the bottom of the third as the Stags pushed across a pair of runs off Blue Jay starter Thomas Cancian, who walked in back-to-back runs after Claremont had loaded the bases with two outs.
 
The deadlock didn't last long as the Blue Jays answered in the top of the fourth with two more courtesy of a bases loaded hit by pitch and a Jacob Harris sacrifice fly that made it 5-3 and Geer added a solo home run in the top of the fifth to extend the cushion to 6-3.

The three-run cushion was gone in the bottom of the inning as the Stags, who entered the game second only to Johns Hopkins in home runs on the year, hit a pair of long balls to pull even. A two-run bomb to right off the bat of national home run leader Alex Henderson made it 6-5 and a Carter Bennett solo shot to left pulled the Stags even.
 
Claremont retook the lead in the bottom of the sixth as a Henderson single to right chased home Charlie Kalil. Kalil raced home from second and narrowly beat a great throw from Shane.

The Blue Jays pushed across another pair in the top of the seventh to again grab the lead at 8-7. A Clay Hartje single plated Shane and William Jaun, who had singled earlier in the inning, advanced to third on a wild pitch and came home on a throwing error to give Hopkins the one-run lead.
 
Max Pemberton, whose throwing error in the top of the seventh had helped the Jays take the lead, got his redemption in the bottom of the inning with a two-out home run to right that tied the game for the fourth time at 8-8.
 
The 8-8 score held until a ninth inning that saw both teams have chances to put it away. When neither did, it was the Stags who walked away in the 10^th to force the deciding game.
 
Inside the Box Score – Johns Hopkins
• Geer and Adams both collected a pair of hits with Geer also scoring three times.
 
• Hartje reached base three times on two walks and a hit while Adams was also on three times with the two hits and a walk.
 
• The home runs for Shane and Geer push the Blue Jays' season total to 109, which is the fourth-best total in Division III history and just five shy of the record of 114, which JHU set in 2023.