Sharks Fall One Win Short Of National Tournament
The Miami Dade College baseball team’s season ended on May 15 at the state tournament in Lakeland, one victory short of qualifying for nationals.
In the championship game—one of five games the team played in four days—MDC lost to the College of Central Florida, 4-3.
The Sharks jumped out to a 3-0 lead after scoring two runs in the first inning. They tacked on an additional run in the third, but the Patriots got within one after they scored two runs in the sixth inning before adding two more runs in the eighth inning to secure the win.
“I’m really proud of everybody,” said Sharks’ right fielder Wooyeoul Shin. “The players, coaches, trainers, whoever is part of the team. I’m not gonna forget about this team.”
Miami Dade College faced an uphill battle at the tournament after they lost their first game, 9-1, on May 12 versus Indian River State College. The loss put them on the brink of elimination the following day and forced them to face Chipola College, which was the No. 2 ranked team in the nation at the time.
The Sharks responded by defeating CC, 7-2. Catcher Loidel Rodriguez-Peralta and Shin led MDC’s offense with three hits each. Right-hander Andy Rodriguez collected the win, striking out nine in six innings.
On May 14, the Sharks’ offense was in full display as they scored 25 runs in two wins to qualify for the championship game. In the first game, MDC avenged their loss earlier in the week by defeating Indian River State College, 10-4. In the second game, the Sharks beat the College of Central Florida, 15-9, on the strength of home runs by second baseman Joseph Zamora, Shin and center fielder Jose Hernandez, who had five RBI in the game.
Three of the teams that played in the state tournament finished in the top-20 rankings in the national polls. The College of Central Florida currently has a No. 2 ranking, Chipola College is ranked 12th and MDC finished at No. 20.
“I’m just very proud about what these kids did. They lost game one in the state tournament and they battled their tails off. They eliminated Chipola, the No. 2 ranked team in the nation at the time, they eliminated our rival Indian River and we were very close to eliminating Central Florida and winning it all,” Morales said. “It’s a tribute to those players. You know us coaches, we can put them in position, we write lineups, we prepare them but at the end of the day, the players play and we are just very proud of what they did.”
Despite the loss in the championship game, the Sharks had a strong season. They were 39-19-1 and 16-5 in Southern Conference play.
Head coach Adrian Morales was named the conference Coach of the Year and Rodriguez had a breakout season striking out 121 batters in 95.2 innings while posting a 2.45 earned run average and a 10-3 record.
Shin and Hernandez led the team with nine home runs each, Rodriguez-Peralta had a team-leading 45 RBI and Zamora led all hitters with a .369 batting average.
“It was a grind. It was mentally tiring and physically tiring but we never gave up” said Sharks’ first baseman Matthew Krtausch. “We showed heart.”
