MT. CARMEL, Ill. -- Who knows what stories are yet to be written about the Wabash Valley baseball team.
What happened on Saturday may indeed hold up as the signature moment of the 2023 season. Regardless, it will certainly rank as one of the greatest moments in Warrior post-season history.
Jorge Rodriguez hit a two-out grand slam home run in the bottom of the eighth inning to catapult the third-ranked Warriors from behind and onward to an 11-8 victory over Lake Land in the championship game of the NJCAA Region 24A tournament at Fournier Field.
In a winner-take-all third meeting of the weekend between these two, Lake Land carried an 8-5 lead into the bottom of the eighth, just six outs away from a jarring upset of the two-time defending Region 24 champions, who just one week earlier had been ranked No. 1 in the country.
They would get only three outs.
Mack Mitchell led off with a walk. The next two batters were retired with Mitchell advancing to third base. Daniel Contreras reached on a fielder's choice, and Mitchell scored to make it 8-6.
Luke Odden and Richard Bonomolo both singled to load the bases. Nick Williams then worked a walk that forced Contreras home to cut the deficit to 8-7.
That set the stage for Rodriguez, who cleared them all with his eighth – and grandest -- homer of the year.
Now staked to a lead, Wabash Valley manager Aaron Biddle turned to his ace, Jacob Frost, to close it out. Frost had started 15 games this season, the latest on Thursday when he tossed five innings in a tournament-opening win over Frontier but had not yet come out of the bullpen. The sophomore southpaw was up to the challenge, however, setting the Lakers down 1-2-3 in the ninth to earn his second career save and the chance to start again.
Lake Land, which finished the season with a 23-34 record and a 2-4 mark versus WVC, jumped to a 4-0 lead with one run in the first and three more in the second.
The Warriors got three runs back in the home half of the second on an RBI double from Odden, and a two-run home run from Bonomolo, his seventh.
Lake Land scored four more in the fourth for an 8-3 lead, and the Warriors began their long trek back from that point.
Odden's two-run single cut the Laker lead to 8-5 in the bottom of the sixth.
Wabash Valley (50-11), facing elimination as the day began, eked out a 4-3 win over Lake Land to force the grand finale. In this one, the Warriors scored two runs in the second and fourth and held on from there.
In the second, Bonomolo drove in the first run, before Williams authored what was the first of his two bases-loaded RBI walks on the day to make it 2-0.
Then, two innings later, Williams and Rodriguez both singled in runs to make it 4-0.
Louis Phillipe Langevin got the start and held the Lakers off the board until they scored three runs in the sixth. Manuel De Gracia came on in relief, and carried the game into the ninth, when Sam Mettert mounted the hill with one runner on and got the final three outs, including one Laker thrown out on the bases by catcher Contreras.
The victory marked the third straight season the Warriors have reached the 50-win plateau, a streak that might be five in a row if not for the COVID-halted 17-2 season of 2020.
There was one other Region 24 tournament being played simultaneously. No. 18 John A. Logan (43-15) won the Region 24B title by climbing out of the consolation bracket like WVC. The Volunteers swept Kaskaskia, 12-5 and 9-2, on Saturday.
Wabash Valley will join Logan and Region 4 winner South Suburban (40-19) in Iowa next weekend at the NJCAA Midwest District tournament. Just who will host that four-team double-elimination tournament from Region 11 remains to be seen. Indian Hills (32-19) only needs one win on Sunday against Iowa Western (38-13) to wrap up the title.