GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — Atticus Goodson didn't have an official at-bat in the Alpine Bank Junior College World Series before Friday night's semifinal game.
He went to the plate three times on Thursday and was hit by a pitch each time.
So when the barrel-chested left fielder actually got a chance to swing the bat, he made it count.
Goodson's home run over the scoreboard helped spark top-seeded Walters State to an 11-9 victory over McLennan on Friday night in front of 12,103 fans at Suplizio Field and into Saturday's title game.
“Coach just constantly prepares us and tells us that you gotta be willing to step up at any point in time and do your job,” Goodson said. “And Jack (Voegle) getting hurt yesterday, I had a good feeling I was going to step up today, but Coach just prepared us and we just went out there and did our thing.”
The Senators (59-7-1, 4-1 JUCO) face Salt Lake (47-11, 4-1 JUCO) at 7 p.m. Saturday for the title.
“How blessed am I to have the resilient group that I've got?” Walters State coach Dave Shelton said. “What a team McLennan has, oh, my gosh. I look at the record and I don't know how they lost five games all year. They're so good. I mean, they're so hard to pitch to, their pitchers do such a great job of landing their off-speed stuff, fastballs. I think that was just a heavyweight battle and I'm so proud of our guys the way they battled the entire game, and their guys did, too. That was a great Junior College World Series baseball game.”
The Senators, ranked first in the nation and seeded first in the tournament, scored in each of the first seven innings, never letting McLennan regain the upper hand after the Highlanders put up three runs in the top of the first inning. After that, Walters State starter Aiden Robertson settled in for his second win of the tournament, throwing 6.2 innings, allowing eight runs on 12 hits. He struck out eight and walked three.
“I went to the cutter most often, the harder slider and it seemed to work really well against their lineup,” Robertson said. “It was a lot better than it was my first start, and I could land it a lot more often.”
Giving up three runs in the first didn't bother Robertson, knowing what kind of offense he has.
“It gives you so much confidence on the mound, because whenever I give up a three spot in the first inning, I'm unbothered,” he said. “I know that we're going to come back and we put up a two spot in the first inning and bounce back. Then we scored another one after I put up a zero. I mean, it's just huge to come back from that. You know, we give up some runs in the first and then bounce back. It's super nice.”
Goodson was hit twice more on Friday and struck out once, but the Senators did damage up and down the lineup. Tyler Myatt hit a two-run home run in the third inning, when Walters State showed once again it's not just a team full of free-swinging sluggers.
After Myatt's home run, Carson Cabbage reached on an error and Jack Torbett laid down a bunt. At first he was called out on a bang-bang play at first, but Shelton challenged the call, which was overturned. Taylor Harris followed with another bunt single and Walker Morgan grounded to short, forcing Harris at second. An errant throw allowed Cabbage and Torbett to both score.
“People probably think we just roll out to practice and throw the balls out and take BP. It's been kind of the thought process on Walters State, but we work on a lot of things in practice,” Shelton said. “You've got to be versatile to be able to do some things at different points in time.
“And yes, we've scuffled a little bit out here this tournament, but part of that, I think, is we've got a whole group of guys that have never played in anything like this, and until you've actually experienced it, there's nothing like it. To just throw kids who have never played in front of more than 100 people, in front of 12,000 people, and say, ‘Hey, go do your job and don't be nervous.’ Guess what? It's not as easy as it might sound.”
After picking up a run in the fourth on a sacrifice fly by Cabbage, Morgan lifted a fly ball deep to center that just cleared the wall and the glove of a leaping Owen Smith. It was the 69th home run of the tournament, only two away from tying the record.
Brody Chyr hit a leadoff home run to right in the fourth inning for McLennan (48-18, 3-2 JUCO), which added two runs in the fifth to cut it to 8-6, but the Highlanders couldn't keep pace with Walters State, despite out-hitting the Senators 1-12. A couple of base running mistakes, trying to stretch an extra base, hurt, as did three errors and hitting five batters.
“What I told them is, I'm just so thankful God put them in my life,” McLennan coach Tyler Johnson said. “They're an awesome group of guys. Those sophomores were the first recruiting class that were just this group of coaches. It's my third years as a head coach here, and it was our first time having just recruited to come play for me and this group of coaches that are here and and so it's pretty awesome seeing them just grow over the last two years.
“What I told them … I mean, at the end of the year, we sit here and we put all this all this effort and all this work and spend so much time around each other, but baseball is just something they do. God's got a bigger purpose for all their lives so it's pretty awesome just seeing them grow and mature as men throughout this whole year.”
Walters State now turns its attention to Salt Lake, which is playing in its first championship game in program history.
Getting to the title game with his son, Dalton, sitting next to him in the dugout as the Senators' bat boy makes Saturday's game even more special for Shelton, who will be coaching in his second championship game as a head coach. The Senators won the title in 2006 when Shelton was an assistant coach.
“Means the world to me. When we started watching the videos of the previous years when we were out here, and I started showing the guys to put them in the setting, one of the first things that popped out to me is videos of (Dalton) running around, you know, when he's six, seven years old, and all the guys are looking at that video like, oh my gosh. How old is he?
“And there's videos of him and my daughter, Madison, she's become a little more bashful now; she won't come over here and get on video anymore, but maybe we could get her in for an interview at some point. But you know, having him by my side, it means the world to me. It makes it so much more special. And you know, any father think the same.”
He knows every player will be nervous, and like the first game of the tournament, the team that handles the jitters and what's expected to be another packed house has the best shot at raising the trophy.
“You can't look past the fact that it's a championship game,” Goodson said, “but you've just gotta go out and play your game. We have great hitters and we've got great pitchers and have trust in them as well and we've just got to go out and do what we're trained to do.”