SSU BB moves on to RSC Championship Series; earns first nat'l berth since '11
The members of the Shawnee State baseball team had to miss Saturday morning's Spring Commencement back on the Shawnee State University grounds. They had business to attend to. And if you asked each and every member of that team if they'd regret their season, the answer would be a no every time, regardless of the result.
The due diligence of the Shawnee State baseball program's efforts paid off in the most impressive of ways as the Bears, going up against a difficult conference tournament field that included 28-win Midway, 38-win Indiana-Southeast and 40-win Oakland City, found a way to reach the River States Conference Championship Series. SSU will not only play for a River States Conference Tournament Championship in its final season as a member of the RSC and the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), but will do so with an NAIA Opening Round berth already locked in hand as a result of its work. The Bears clinched that berth, their first since 2011, by not only defeating Midway by a 3-0 count on the first day of the River States Conference Tournament but also beating Oakland City, who not only went 40-13 during the 2026 season but were the defending RSC Champions from the 2025 campaign, twice in reaching the RSC Championship Series.
In its three triumphs between its 3-0 win over Midway on Thursday evening to begin matters at the RSC Tournament and then its 9-1 and 7-2 victories over Oakland City on Friday evening and Saturday evening, Shawnee State starting pitchers Ricardo Medrano, Owen Elsey and Trevor Ollier combined to walk just eight batters in a combined 30 innings of work. Medrano threw seven innings of shutout baseball in his winning decision over Midway, while Elsey threw a complete game without allowing an earned run against Oakland City. Ollier added in seven innings of two-run baseball in the second triumph against the Mighty Oaks on Saturday.
Evan Hood and two-way standout Jace Parnin, who threw two innings each of relief from the bullpen on Thursday and Saturday respectively, combined for four innings of shutout baseball to preserve winning decisions for both Medrano and Ollier. "We knew that it was going to take three really strong starts from our pitching staff to get to this point," Ehlers said. "I always preach, 'Throw strikes, throw strikes, throw strikes.
' We've walked eight guys total in our three wins, and that's elite, elite level. From the fall, we knew that we weren't going to be a high-strikeout pitching staff, but if we could compete and throw strikes, we knew that we were going to be offensive enough to win some big games this year. " Shawnee State achieved the conference's second and final auto bid to the NAIA Opening Round as Indiana-Southeast, the River States Conference's Regular Season Champion, reached the RSC Championship Series by winning each of its first three games in the winner's bracket.
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