Wright State baseball: Raiders ride stellar pitching to league title, NCAA berth

“Holy cow!” he exclaimed in the joyous aftermath Saturday at Nischwitz Stadium. “I KNEW we could do it.

“That’s the first championship game where it’s been tight. There’s been a number of years where we’ve been fortunate to be scoring a lot of runs and the other team isn’t. But the pitching guy in me will take a 2-0 game any day of the week — though it probably will take a few years off my life.”

The Raiders (38-19) dropped into the loser’s bracket but prevailed in three straight elimination games to snag their sixth crown in the last eight HL tourneys and their league-high 11th overall.

They gave up just five runs in that trio of games with their season on the line, including a 2-0 win over Milwaukee in the finals when freshman reliever J.J. Thompson was all but unhittable.

Taking over for senior starter Jarrett Heilman with one out in the sixth and two runners on, the lefty snuffed out the rally with a 4-6-3 double-play.

He went 3.2 innings and gave up just one hit while striking out five.

“It gives you a lot of confidence when you know you can trust the guys behind you,” he said. “There was a little anxiety, but that’s just because it’s a big moment. You embrace it. That’s what we did as a team — embraced it.”

The HL all-freshman team pick came to Wright State out of Hopkinsville, Ky., as an outfielder.

“He was unbelievable. We had Warren Hartzell, our best reliever, in the bullpen, and he didn’t even pitch — that’s how good J.J. was,” Sogard said.

Garrett Peters (5-0) — a fifth-year senior lefty from Northeastern High School in South Vienna — had a 149-pitch complete game in an 18-1 win over Northern Kentucky to keep the Raiders’ season alive Friday night.

And sophomore Chet Lax (4-1) went eight innings in a 13-4 win in the first game Saturday against Milwaukee (24-35), giving up three runs and striking out seven.

“Garrett Peters — I’ve never seen anything like that in my life. It’s only the third time all season we’ve gone over 100 pitches (with a starter). We don’t do that,” Sogard said.

“But he’s hanging it up after this season, and he just didn’t slow down. They never got to him. It was a very special moment.”

Junior third-baseman Patrick Fultz had eight straight hits over two games Saturday and went 12 for 22 with a homer and six RBIs to win the MVP award.

The Springfield Shawnee grad scored the Raiders’ first run on a sacrifice fly and had an RBI single in the fifth to make it 2-0.

He also went 12 for 15 in the final regular-season series at Purdue Fort Wayne.

Asked what’s clicked, he said: “I wish I had a good answer for you. This game has highs and lows. There’s that famous interview with Scooter Gennett, a former Red (from 2017-19), who just hit four home runs in a day. Afterward, when he gets interviewed, he’s talking about how the game will humble you at so many different points.

“You know darker days are coming, but it’s great being at the plate and seeing the ball well.”

The Raiders, who will be making their 12th NCAA tourney trip, will find out their regional destination during the bracket reveal at noon Monday on ESPN2.

Their 11 league titles are five more than the next highest total.

“We had such a good regular-season, but being in a one-bid league is tough. To win the tournament, you’ve got to play good for three days,” Sogard said.

“Milwaukee was a hot team. They gave us a run for our money. I’m just proud of our guys — for their resilience, their toughness and their response.”

League record: Boston Smith hit two more homers in the tourney to break the league record with 23 this year. The HL player of the year, Youngstown State’s Kyle Fossum, ended the year with 23, too.

Cleveland State’s Jeff Haas (2000) and Northern Kentucky’s Liam McFadden-Ackman (2024) held the previous record with 22.

All-League: Hunter Warren was named HL freshman of the year. The Moline, Ill., product hit .379 in the regular-season and gives the Raiders their fifth FOY in the last 10 years.

Smith, the hard-hitting catcher, also made the all-league first team along with pitcher Cam Allen, left-fielder JP Peltier and second-baseman Braylen Blomquist.

On the second team were short stop Luke Arnold, right-fielder Cam Gilkerson, designated-hitter Gus Gregory and pitcher Max Whitesell.

The Raiders dominated the all-freshman team, taking five of nine spots: Warren, Blomquist, Gilkerson, Thompson and pitcher Malachi Paplanus.

Sogard was named coach of the year for the fifth time in seven seasons, extending his program record.