‘We put it in the past’: Hawks regroup after gut-punching loss, stave off elimination with offensive eruption

CALEDONIA, Mich. — Brock Boynton felt he had to get away.

“I actually left the ballpark and took a walk in the woods,” the Quincy University sophomore center fielder said. “It was tough.”

With a victory in the opening game of the NCAA Division II Midwest Regional seemingly within its grasp, the fourth-seeded QU baseball team faltered. Fifth-seeded Northwood hit three home runs in the top of the ninth inning to erase a four-run deficit and force extra innings.

In the 12th, the Timberwolves scored five times to punctuate a 10-5 victory and put the Hawks on the brink of elimination.

With only 40 minutes to regroup and refocus, Boynton and the Hawks needed a few minutes at least to absorb what had happened.

“I didn’t eat lunch, I grabbed a water and I took a walk in the woods, if I’m being honest with you,” Boynton said.

No one really knew what else to do in that moment.

“It wasn’t great between games,” senior left fielder Joe Roscetti said. “There were a lot of sad faces in the dugout. There was a lot of ‘what just happened’ going around. It was tough.”

Finally, with about 15 minutes remaining before the scheduled first pitch against top-seeded Davenport, sophomore shortstop Gino D’Alessio brought the team together for a pep talk.

His words resonated. The Hawks changed the tone of the day and their prospects for the remainder of the regional by jackhammering the Panthers 17-4 at Farmers Insurance Athletic Complex. Quincy still must win two more games to advance to the super-regional, but the Hawks feel momentum is back on their side.

Quincy (34-23) is scheduled to play Northwood — no matter if the Timberwolves win or lose to Davenport — at 3 p.m. Friday.

“We huddled up so we could reset our minds and get back on track,” Roscetti said. “Gino just said whatever happened in the last game happened. It’s over now. We were kind of hyping ourselves up a little more. It worked.”

Senior right-hander Jay Hammel shut down Davenport’s offense, tossing a complete game while allowing four runs and 10 hits. He struck out seven, including five in the final three innings.

“Obviously, how that first game went, it was very tough,” Hammel said. “Ultimately, it’s win or go home now. I think that affected the attitude we had as a team. We put it in the past and went out and did what we did.”

It’s not so easy to do when you’re shell-shocked.

The Hawks built a 5-1 lead against Northwood with senior right-hander Spencer Walker limiting the Timberwolves to four hits through eight innings. However, Northwood’s Rhett Evans and Myles Beale hit back-to-back homers on the first three pitches of the ninth inning.

A groundout, a single and flyout followed, leaving Walker one out from finishing things off. However, the Timberwolves’ David Jeffers jacked a two-run home run to left field to tie the game.

Jeffers, the No. 9 hitter in Northwood’s lineup, was hitless before that at-bat. He had hit one home run this season.

“He hadn’t hit a ball hard all day,” QU coach Matt Schissel said.

Although the lead was lost at that point, the game wasn’t.

The Hawks loaded the bases with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, but Lance Logsdon was called out on a check swing to end the threat. Quincy had runners on base in both the 10th and 11th innings, but couldn’t advance them.

In the 12th, the Timberwolves didn’t squander their opportunity, getting a single and hit batter to start the inning and parlaying it into a five-run outburst.

It was a punch to the gut and a punch to the face.

“It’s been the case all year with this group,” Schissel said. “We get punched in the face and we punch right back.”

It happened again. Nolan Wosman’s home run in the second inning and Logsdon’s RBI groundout in the third gave the Hawks a 2-0 lead over Davenport. The Panthers answered with two runs in the bottom of the third, but the Hawks took the lead for good in the fourth.

Roscetti’s RBI single resulted in a 3-2 lead, and Boynton followed with a three-run home run to right field for a 6-2 edge. Quincy kept piling on from there.

The Hawks finished with a season-high 20 hits with eight of the nine batters in the lineup collecting two or more hits. Boynton went 4 for 5 with six RBIs, while Zach Parks was 4 for 6 and Sebatian Martinez finished 4 for 4.

“It’s so contagious,” said Boynton, who also hit a home run in the ninth inning. “Anyone in the lineup 1 through 9 can get that started for us.”