In most sports, the season begins and ends during the school year. Trinity baseball is the exception, a program that has played past graduation in every season since 2020. While the rest of the student body packed their rooms and made summer plans, the baseball team was practicing and working to advance as far as they could into the NCAA Division III playoffs.
Trinity’s postseason path began in the regional round hosted by East Texas Baptist University (ETBU) in Marshall, Texas. Normally, a 36-win regular season would have earned the Tigers home field advantage, but this year, that was not the case.
“I think to be honest, it was frustrating for us at first, having seen that draw,” alum Trinity pitcher Jack Briese ‘25 said. “But then we really just embraced it. We embraced the fact that this isn’t going to be easy, and we’re not going to be in our own park, but we’re going to go win.”
Faced with the adversity of having the best record of the teams in their four-team regional, but still having to play on the road, the Tigers got off to a hot start. They downed Huntingdon College 20-2 and then beat ETBU in a comeback effort 12-10. However, in a double elimination bracket filled with second chances, ETBU forced a winner-take-all game by beating Trinity 4-0. The season would come down to one win-or-go-home game.
The Tigers started slow and fell behind 3-1 in the eighth inning, but they were able to come back and send it to extra innings largely thanks to a two-run home run from first-year shortstop John Ramsey. Trinity then sealed the game in the 10th inning, as junior outfielder Kaleb Woodward’s two-RBI triple gave the Tigers the lead.
“We just got some timely hits, which was kind of the story of the year at that point,” Woodward said. “Winning up there almost felt like winning the World Series because I feel like that’s been an established rivalry.”
After two consecutive years of losing in the regional, Trinity was on to the Super Regional against McMurry University at home.
“I think the players were excited to have it at home,” Head Coach Tim Scannell said. “It meant a lot to them to be able to have a Super Regional with a chance to go to the World Series at home.”
The Tigers were facing a familiar opponent in McMurry, who they had swept in conference play earlier in the season.
“That’s always a little bit uncomfortable,” Scannell said. “It’s hard to beat people five or six times in a season, but we also quickly said this is who we’re playing, and at least we know a lot about them.”
Trinity proved to be too much for McMurry, as the Tigers swept the series in two games, winning 5-4 in game one and 10-4 in game two.
“It’s about what your talent and depth look like and felt that’s what came up in the series,” Scannell said. “They had three or four really good hitters. We had seven or eight really good hitters. They had two really good pitchers, while we had seven to nine really good pitchers, and I think that’s why we won that series.”
Trinity marched on to Eastlake, Ohio, the host of the Division III Baseball Championship, which began on May 30. In Eastlake, the eight remaining teams competed for the national title in another double-elimination bracket. Trinity’s first opponent was the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, last year’s tournament runner-up. While the Tigers kept it close, they ultimately fell short, losing 7-3. They then lost the following elimination game to Rowan University 13- 2, bringing an end to the season. WisconsinWhitewater went on to win the Division III national championship in June.
“Both the teams we played were phenomenal opponents,” Briese said. “We ran into some buzzsaw arms, and that’s baseball. That’s going to happen. We gave it everything we had, and that’s part of the game.”
Despite the ending, by making it to their fourth championship in 11 seasons, Trinity baseball accomplished something few other programs have done.
“Just winning a regional is so tough. It’s just brutal, and then a Super Regional is another coin toss,” Woodward said. “So making it to the World Series is a really huge feat. We’ve had a lot of great Trinity teams since Coach Scannell has been here, and for only four of those teams to make it to the World Series, I think that says a lot.”
Out of over 350 Division III programs, Trinity was one of the final eight left standing, an accomplishment recognized by the team.
“It was without a doubt the number one most satisfying and fun year that I’ve had in all my time at Trinity,” Scannell said. “This team had something special from the beginning.”
The Tigers will now see if they can follow the blueprint laid out by the 2016 national championship team: Lose at the final site the year before winning it all. 46 of the players on last year’s team will return for another shot at winning the whole thing. The only thing left is to wait for spring to come and watch it unfold.