Baseball Wins Third NAIA National Championship in Dominant Fashion

LEWISTON, Idaho- The red banner is coming back to Athens for the third time as the baseball team won the 69th Avista NAIA World Series 21-3 on Saturday. The team recorded the largest margin victory in World Series history against No. 1 seed Taylor University. 

TWU scored the first seven runs of the game, putting them on the board in the second and third innings. Kolton Reynolds scored the first run of the game in the second inning on a sacrifice fly by Ethan Wright. Allan Gil Fernandez hit his fourth home run of the World Series, this one a three-run bomb that brought in Hagen Escoto and Brayan Espinoza, giving the team a 4-0 lead after the second inning.

In the third inning, Brayan Espinoza hit a single that brought in Josh Shelly, and ended up on third due to an error. Reynolds also scored on the error, making the score 6-0. A single by Wright made the score 7-0 as Espinoza scored. 

TWU added four more runs in the fourth inning after Taylor broke the shutout. Fernandez scored on a Shelly ground out while Rob Gordon scored on David Ballenilla's single. Ballenilla scored on a Reynold single while a throwing error on Wright's hit gave Reynolds the space to score from second.

Holding a 11-3 lead heading into the seventh inning, the Bulldogs scored ten more runs between the seventh and eighth innings. Three consecutive singles in the seventh inning by Ballenilla, Reynolds, and Espinoza were responsible for four runs, with Shelly and the three batters all scoring, moving the lead to 15-3. 

In the eighth inning, Shelly started a six-run inning with a sacrifice fly scoring Cody McGill. Ballenilla hit a double down the left field line that Fernandez scored on and Reynolds put the exclamation point on the inning, hitting a home run to right field that brought in Ballenilla and Jonathan Bosque as well. Jacob Tolson brought in the final run of the game, hitting a sacrifice fly that Espinoza scored on to make the final score 21-3, giving the Bulldogs the largest margin of victory in World Series history. 

TWU recorded 22 hits in the game, setting a new record for the most hits in a game at the World Series. 

Fernandez was named the Most Valuable Player while Gordon was named the Charles Berry Hustle Award winner and Reynolds was named the Gold Glove Winner. 

The baseball program becomes the third active NAIA program (fifth overall) to win three NAIA National Championships. The team finishes the season with a 49-15 record, marking their sixth consecutive season with at least 40 wins. The program has won 40 or more games in 11 of the last 12 seasons.