Box Score

ST. PAUL, Minn. – No. 20 Saint John's ended the MIAC Baseball Tournament with an 8-0 loss to Bethel on Sunday, May 13, at CHS Field in downtown St. Paul.

With the win, Bethel (32-9, 14-6 MIAC) earns its first MIAC Playoff championship and trip to the NCAA Division III Tournament. The 58-team national tournament field is scheduled to be announced at 11:01 p.m. Sunday night on www.ncaa.com. SJU (33-8, 16-4 MIAC) hopes to receive an at-large bid, in what would be the program's eighth trip to the national tournament and third in the last four seasons.

The Royals out-hit the fatigued Johnnies 10-2 in the game. SJU's team bus pulled into the Warner Palaestra parking lot at 12:15 a.m. this morning, following the Johnnies' 2-1 win over St. Thomas late Saturday, and departed Collegeville seven hours later.

Four of the seven walks SJU's pitchers issued scored. The Johnnie pitching staff entered the game with one walk issued in the tournament's previous 26 innings.

BU gained a quick 5-0 lead thanks to five hits, four of which were groundballs, and three walks in the top of the first inning off junior Tommy Auger (St. Cloud, Minn./Cathedral). Auger entered the start with eight earned runs allowed in 35 innings this season.

The Royals made it 6-0 with an unearned run in the top of the second off sophomore Joey Stock (Cold Spring, Minn./Saint John's Prep). Stock walked the bases loaded in the top of the fifth inning and senior Nick Noack (Thousand Oaks, Calif./Westlake) surrendered another groundball single, which scored two with two outs.