by Kelsey Bongiovanni for D3baseball.com

When you think of Africa, baseball isn't the first thing that comes to mind; maybe soccer or basketball does, but definitely not baseball. Park Smith plans on changing that. As the Program Director of The HITS Project, a Project Hope for Africa (PH4Africa) initiative, Smith plans on introducing this traditional American pastime to youth in Rwanda, as a venue to teach HIV education.

Baseball has always been a part of Smith's life. He started playing Little League when he was just five years old and eventually went on to be a four year starter at Denison. After graduating in 2010, Smith was prepared to say goodbye to the game that had provided so many memories and delve into another newly found passion in his life, Africa.

Smith fell in love with the people of Africa during a trip to Uganda in the fall of his senior year. "What I saw was some of the happiest people I've ever met, even when living in extreme poverty," Smith said of the people he met on this part-humanitarian, part self-discovery journey. "I had an idea that I might want to pursue a career path focused on Africa," Smith said, "but after my trip it became very evident."

When Smith began to work for Project Hope for Africa, a 501(c)(3) non-governmental organization focused on creating sustainable public health initiatives for youth infected or affected by the HIV/AID pandemic in Africa, he was tasked with creating a program to help raise awareness.

Smith saw this as a perfect opportunity to combine his two passions. "The HITS Project blends a unique mix of my own interests and goals- a love for baseball, an enthusiasm for youth and a passion for Africa, they all intertwine," he said.

Smith will look to many of the skills he learned while playing baseball at Denison to help make this project a success. "There have been a lot of leadership skills that I learned from being a captain my junior and senior year how to approach different kinds of players, recognize different learning styles, and facilitate overall team organization," Smith said. He hopes that his leadership skills will allow him to eventually expand his program throughout the continent and reach more youth.

"Baseball has taught me the importance of consistency, of responding from failure because in baseball you fail more often than you succeed. It's your response to that failure that determines how good a baseball player you will. These lessons learned on the baseball field directly transfer into life," he said.

The HITS Project will focus on five main principles of the game that can be translated into the life of youth in Africa: Communication, Discipline, Response to Failure, Decision-making and Teamwork. Smith is currently collecting equipment and recruiting volunteers for the first trip in mid-October. This trip will feature a four-week camp that will reach 100 teenage youth. The camp will not only serve as a way to teach baseball, but as a way to teach English and educate youth about HIV/AIDS.

As for whether or not baseball will take off in Africa, a place where it is relatively unknown, Smith thinks it has a good chance. "Africa provides a unique opportunity for baseball because it's such an untapped resource of athletes," Smith said, "there is a lack of resources for playing the game now, but with The HITS Project started there's a huge possibility for it to take hold and really expand."

To contact Park Smith about volunteer opportunities or ways to help The HITS Project, email him at parksmith@ph4africa.org

By Pat Coleman

GRAND CHUTE, Wis. -- Andersen Gardner was a Cortland State win away from being a slam-dunk choice for Most Outstanding Player of the 2010 Division III baseball championships. But a few years ago, he was seemingly destined for a different path: not just a different school, but a different level of baseball altogether.

"It's been life-changing," Gardner said in the postgame news conference following his team's 17-5 loss to Illinois Wesleyan. "I didn't really know what I was going to do coming out of high school because I'm not really the smartest guy. I had a couple of D-I offers, and I'm glad I turned them down because my career here has just been unbelievable.

"To go to three World Series out of four -- some people don't even get to one in four years. It's been one heck of a ride. It's just sad it didn't happen the way we wanted it to, but national runner-up is still pretty good out of however many colleges there are in D-III."

Gardner's performance in the second round game against Linfield caused a buzz in the stands, with fans talking about staying in their seats just to see "that designated hitter" come up for a third time after hitting homers in his first two at-bats. He finished the week batting .500 with four homers, a triple and a double. He was walked five times, including once with the bases loaded by Linfield in the Tuesday elimination game. Consindering he entered Tuesday with a 1.500 slugging percentage, perhaps the walk was the best alternative. Gardner was also hit by pitch three times.

BEST FINISH EVER: This was Cortland State's 10th trip to the Division III World Series and the Red Dragons will go back home to New York without a title once again. But this was as far as they had gotten, to the winner-take-all game. The Red Dragons had played on the final day before, losing to UW-Whitewater in 2005 in the first game when needing to beat the Warhawks twice. Under the old format, UW-Whitewater had gotten Monday off and come in fresh on Tuesday.

Coach Joe Brown has been at Cortland for all 10 trips. "I told all the returners to watch (the Illinois Wesleyan celebration), that this is an expectation we have here. It's not some far-fetched imagination. It's a realistic objective and goal. We've been extremely fortunate at Cortland to be at the World Series 10 times, and when these young men get home they'll start working on next year."

The 10 appearances at the championships are the most for any team without a national championship. Second is Carthage, with seven.

WHERE'D THAT COME FROM? A year ago, Kyle Scallion was a mop-up reliever for the Shenandoah Hornets. This time around in Appleton, he was an All-Region performer as Shenandoah's closer.

Scallion throws with a motion somewhere in between sidearm and a true submariner, and the ball ends up coming at the hitter from a point about six inches off the ground. And with a pseudo-submariner, even more than for other pitchers, the arm angle can be tough to find. You can see an example in the Larry Radloff-shot photo at left.

"It normally takes about two years for a young man to find an arm slot where he's comfortable," said Shenandoah coach Kevin Anderson. "This is year No. 3 for Kyle, and he's worked extremely hard to find that and he's been big for us all year. We've been very lucky or fortunate in my career to have some pretty good sidearm/submarine guys. Some guys are true submariners and some are sidearmers, and he's really in between that. The ball's coming off the ground about six inches."

Scallion came into Saturday's game against Johns Hopkins in the sixth inning, with runners on first and second and nobody out. He got out of that jam, but eventually gave up seven runs in the eighth, five of them earned.

"We did not think we would score any more runs," said Anderson, "so we treated it like a 2-0 baseball game and the matchup was right for Scallion after the hit by pitch and the walk.

"What we were doing was trying to coach to not let them get a run, because we didn't think we would score any more because (JHU starter Sam Eagleson) was baffling us. If we had to do it over again we'd do it the exact same way."

NOT FILAK: Jason Pankau delivered a great performance, but if Division III's gold standard this year is Oneonta State ace Dave Filak, the Cortland State batters who have faced both say Pankau isn't quite there.

"I wouldn't say he's in the (same) league as Filak is but he mixes up his pitches pretty well," said Cortland State third baseman Steve Nickel. "He's got a little life to his fastball. He's got a pretty good changeup."

"Giving two runs back allowed Pankau to have some room for error and allow him to work the plate a little bit more," Cortland coach Joe Brown added.

Still, that's nothing against Pankau. After all, Filak is being talked about as a draft pick in the sixth- to tenth-round neighborhood. He had a 2.00 ERA with 104 strikeouts and just 19 walks in 67-1/3 innings, allowing just 41 hits. Against Cortland on May 7, Filark threw a complete-game three-hitter, striking out 10. Conversely, Cortland scored 71 runs in six games at the Division III World Series.

WHAT THEY SAID: Unlike at other Division III championships D3sports.com has covered, the Division III baseball committee doesn't come out and talk much. They pretty much stay sequestered in their luxury box, often with the door closed. But every once in a while we would run into a committee member on the concourse or on the field between games and one of the things which came up was the concept of using a little imagination in building the regionals.

Although for the most part the committee kept teams in their "home" regionals -- putting teams in a tournament with other teams from their region, whether it makes for a competitively balanced bracket or not, regardless of whether there are other regionals they can bus to conveniently, they did make one change that we had in our projections. That was to send Penn State-Behrend to the Mideast, instead of busing them all the way across Pennsylvania to the Mid-Atlantic Regional. We recognized that it was a much shorter trip when building our mock brackets, and Behrend had a little success this year where in the past they have taken a longer trip and struggled.

There's room for using the 500-mile busing rule to spread the talent around. The men's basketball committee finally figured this out this past year. And with eight predetermined sites for baseball regionals, this should be even easier.

By the way, we also learned the seven-team bracket is here to stay for at least one more year. Division III baseball isn't eligible for a 56th playoff team until 2012.

By Pat Coleman

GRAND CHUTE, Wis. -- It was April 29, heading into the stretch run of the Division III baseball season for most teams north of the Mason-Dixon line. Except for Illinois Wesleyan, that day ended with a loss to Concordia (Ill.), a 7-6 home defeat that left the Titans 14-17. At 8-7 in the CCIW, there was a chance that the Titans wouldn't even make the conference tournament.

Ryan Hopp was batting .286. Mark McDermott was at .269. Zach Scott was .245. Kraig Ladd was at .164. And Jeff Grodecki was hitting just .225.

Fast forward five weeks and Grodecki is banging out two home runs and going 5-for-5 in the national title game. Scott, a freshman, knocked in game-winning runs on back-to-back nights as the Titans went 3-0 to start the nationals. Hopp hit .391 over the final 21 games with 18 RBI and 24 runs scored. And with 21 games -- a 17-4 mark -- in 33 days, it was a whirlwind run for the Titans, who finished 31-21 and won the 2010 Division III baseball national championship with a 17-5 win against Cortland State.

It seems, to borrow a phrase Titans coach Dennis Martel used frequently in Wisconsin, unbelievable.

"It is really a Cinderella story for us to get here and accomplish what we have," Martel said after the game. "The guys have just done a great job. I couldn't be more proud of what we did. It's been an unbelievable ride and I thank them for letting me be part of it. I counted up 19 days since we started the conference tournament and what an unbelievable 19 days it's been. A lot of it in hotels and on the road, but 'national champion Illinois Wesleyan' sounds really good."

It's the first national championship in Division III baseball for a College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin team.

The offense came together, scoring 8.5 runs per game over the final 21 games after scoring a little over six per contest after. For some players, it was a matter of just getting healthy, like Kraig Ladd did. He separated his shoulder in football season, where he was the Titans' starting quarterback, and after batting .381 and .340 as a sophomore and junior, he slumped as a senior.

"There was so much on my mind with graduation and everything," Ladd told the (Bloomington) Pantagraph last week. "I said to my mom I had to stop thinking and realize the game was fun and just go out there and play."

Ladd went 2-for-5 in the title game to lift his championships average to .286 and his season-ending average to .250.

But the most dramatic difference came from a matter of inches. That's the distance Grodecki moved his hands in changing his stance. "I'd say about a month ago I changed my swing," the junior third baseman said. "Coach (Mike) Brown and Martel decided that I needed to do something new. I got my hands from up here (near his shoulders) to down here (just below the letters), and I've probably been hitting about .450, .500 since then, so just a change in the swing."

Grodecki hit .476 with four home runs over his final 21 games, but he was far from the only one to hit a hot streak. McDermott hit .474. Casey McIntosh hit .385 with six homers. Ladd hit .363. As a team, the Titans hit .356, and remember most of that was against NCAA Tournament opponents.

Or, perhaps it was a little more intangible. Catcher Mark McDermott jokingly pegged it all on a team outing shortly before the conference tournament.

"We kind of made it a joke. This whole season we've kind of said that we could literally make a movie out of the characters we had on the team. It's just a lot of fun. And we made a joke -- they just put a new Dollar Tree right down from our campus. Brett Moore, we saw this monkey sitting there and that's the monkey you see on all the trophies now."

"We got it for Ryan Hopp, that's just the joke. Ever since we got that monkey, when we were playing North Central, we've been hitting the (crap) out of the ball."

Whatever it was, Martel knew well enough to get the heck out of the way.

"They just started hitting, everything got on a roll. As a coach I may be dumb, but I'm smart enough to let the roll go. What a ride it's been."

By Jim Dixon

GRAND CHUTE, Wis. -- Off the diamond, Andersen Gardner has little to say but he was heard loud and clear today against Linfield. Gardner had two big hits, a run scoring triple and a two-run home run to lead the Red Dragons into the championship game.

Lost in all the run scoring was the gutsy performance by Travis Ratliff. Ratliff was lifted after the second inning of the opening game due to a blister on his pitching hand. Today, Ratliff allowed for the bull pen to rest keeping the Linfield offense off balance all day.

"That was one of the best performances I have seen considering his finger," said Cortland Head Coach Joe Brown. "We did not know if he would pitch again this year but you have to give credit to our training staff. They worked with him all week to get him ready."

Cortland opened the scoring with a single run in the second and third innings. In the second, Khyle Dimino's single brought in Jason Simone for the 1-0 lead. Gardner's RBI triple in the third brought home Matt June who has singled earlier.

Linfield scored their first run in the fourth. Zach Boskovich was hit by a pitch and scored on the second of two consecutive singles. Cortland answered right away. With one out, Cortland strung together four runs on six hits to knock out Linfield starter, Ryan Larson. Gardner greeted Reese McCulley with his fourth home run of the series, a two run shot over the right field fence for a 8-1 lead.

Linfield chipped away at the lead with a Kelson Brown fifth inning home run. The Wildcats added four more in the sixth with three coming home on Cole Bixenman's home run to left center.

Cortland threatened in the sixth. With the bases loaded, Gardner walked, forcing in one run and Steve Nickel's ground out scored the final run of the inning. The Red Dragons added a run on a June RBI single to take a 11-6 lead. Cortland added an insurance run in the eighth inning on Scott Bailey's double to right.

Down six runs, the Wildcats started a ninth inning rally. Kevin Allan's blopp single loaded the bases for Tyson Smith with one out. Smith hit a double to deep center plating two runners. A Dustin Smith ground out cut Cortland's lead to three but Brown grounded out to end the game and their season.

Matt June and Kyle Dimino led the Red Dragons with four hits each. June added three runs scored and Gardner's four RBIs led the team. Tyson Smith had three hits in six trips to the plate. Bixenman had three RBIs to go with his two hits. Linfield catcher Mith Webb and pinch hitter/second baseman Kevin Allan also had multiple hit games.

Travis Ratliff earned the win despite allowing nine runs in his 8.1 innings of work. Along with 12 hits, Ratliff allowed five walks and had seven strikeouts to increase his tournament lead to nine. Ryan Larson took the loss. Larson allowed seven runs, six earned, in 3.2 innings.

Brown was looking forward to the next game. "We are excited , ready to go. For Brown and the rest of the Cortland Red Dragons they will have just one more game left in their season.

Game notes: Simone's second inning single extended his consecutive hitting streak to 23 games. Khyle Dimino stole second base in the the fourth for his 37th of the season, a Cortland school record.

By Jim Dixon

GRAND CHUTE, Wis. -- Facing elimination, Cortland State came up with a hard-fought 11-10 win on Monday afternoon, as Shawn Bailey's double with one out scored John Zilnicki with the winning run in the bottom of the ninth.

"I was looking fastball," said Bailey. "I got one away and went with it."

Zilnicki led off the ninth with a walk and was sacrificed to second by Dan Kaplan before Bailey's only hit of the game brought all the Red Dragons out of the dugout. Illinois Wesleyan had tied the game in the ninth on a Kevin Sullivan's two-out double to the left field wall.

"This entire tournament has been like this it as it seems we are coming from behind," said Cortland head coach Joe Brown. "For [Illinois Wesleyan] to come out and play like they did, they deserve to be where they are."

Cortland will now face Linfield at 11:00 a.m. Central and the winner will advance to the championship game with Illinois Wesleyan.

Illinois Wesleyan and Cortland each scored three runs in their first at bats. Brent Moore led the game off with a triple to right center and scored on Mark McDermott's single. A walk and hit batter set up Jeff Grodecki's run scoring single and Zach Scott's sacrifice fly. The Red Dragons had the first two runners reach and were brought home by Andersen Gardner's third home run of the series.

Illinois Wesleyan took the lead in the second on a leadoff home run to left field by Kraig Ladd. Cortland tied the game in the third. Gardner singled, moved to second on a wild pitch and scored on Steve Nickel's single to center. In the inning Jason Simone extended his hit streak to 22 games, four short of the Cortland school record.

After escaping a bases-loaded no-outs jam, Cortland grabbed the lead in the fourth. Kevin Jackson singled and scored on Gardner's third hit of the game. June, who reached on a walk, and Gardner were plated by Simone for the 7-4 lead.

Illinois Wesleyan chipped away at the Cortland lead in the sixth. McIntosh's sacrifice fly brought one run and the Titans reloaded the bases. Brandon Derosa relieved Kris Gentzke and walked Ryan Hopp for the second run of the inning. Grodecki's single tied the game at 7-7. Cortland grabbed the lead right back. Adam Dimino and Gardner walked and came around Nickel's triple to center field.

Cortland stretched the lead in the seventh. Following John Zilnicki's triple to right center, Shawn Bailey's sacrifice fly brought in Cortland's 10th run of the game. The Titans inched closer with two runs in the eighth inning on an RBI groundout and an error by Nickel, playing third base for the Red Dragons.

Gardner led the Red Dragons with a 3-for-4 day with four runs and four RBIs. Nickel was 3-for-5 with three RBIs and Simone was 3-for-5. Moore, McDermott and Grodecki had three hits for the Titans.

Kris Gentzke started the game for Cortland and pitched into the sixth inning. Brendan Hourihan, the fourth Cortland pitcher of the day was credited with the win. The loss went to Pat Hayn who entered the game in eighth inning.

"Our team is excited about playing Linfield," said Brown. "You don't get second chances a lot but it is a big task and our kids will be ready."

By Dave Kisor

GRAND CHUTE, Wis. -- Linfield's Rhett Fenton hit a grand slam over the left field wall in the bottom of the eighth to pull the Wildcats ahead of Heidelberg 6-4. The game ended with that score as Linfield advanced to Championship Tuesday at the NCAA D3 baseball championship tournament.

What kind of pitch was it? "I don't know," said Fenton. Did he know it was going out? "It all happened so fast. I knew I put a really good swing on it, the trajectory, it was hard to tell."

The hit came off Heidelberg closer Andy Lowe. "It wasn't a horrible pitch, it was down and away and he yanked it, strong kid."

Heidelberg exits the tournament and ends its year at 42-8.

Heidelberg, who jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the first and added another run in the fourth, was in control through five innings. Student Prince starter Everett Thomas pitched 5 and two-thirds innings allowing four hits and one run.

Linfield coach Scott Brosius said, "One thing we do as a team is continue to believe and continue to fight."

Linfield would have had more fighting to do as Heidelberg threatened to blow the game open in the fourth inning. With one run in, and one out with the bases loaded, Heidelberg's Steve Decker checked his swing and sent the ball back to Linfield relief pitcher Tommy George, who started a successful 1-2-3 double play to end the inning, keeping Heidelberg in reach.

There was a sense that Linfield would eventually make a run and that sentiment was expressed by Heidelberg coach Matt Palm; "In the game, anytime you're leading a ballgame and you have chances to extend (the lead) and you don't, the momentum starts to swing to the other team."

The Wildcats put their first run on the board in the bottom of the sixth when Kelson Brown doubled down the left field line. He then advanced to third on a wild pitch by Thomas. Brown scored on Cole Bixenman's sacrifice fly to center field, cutting the Student Princes' lead to three runs.

The top of the eighth inning brought another defensive stop that prevented Heidelberg from adding runs and kept the momentum changing to Linfield. With runners on first and third and two outs, Ricardo Lizcano hit a ball deep into the hole at short. Brown, Linfield's short stop ranged to his right, got to the ball and threw out Everett Williams, for out number three, as he tried to advance to second. "You know, it's a different ballgame if we get six, seven, eight runs like we did yesterday. They made a run at us yesterday, but when you are up eight to one versus four to one its harder to change momentum totally. Maybe the biggest play of the game was the play their short stop made in the top of the eighth inning when they were able to get the force out at second base. 95% of the games we play, that ball is through and we extend the lead and we have first and third and maybe we score a couple of more runs because we are a two-out team," said Palm.

Heidelberg would not score again and after Linfield scored an initial run in the bottom of the eighth, the Wildcats loaded the bases for Fenton's big blast. "I have never had a game-winning home run, or hit for that matter," said Fenton. "There is still more to go. It was pretty special but we have to turn around tomorrow and play two more games."

While the grand slam was obviously big, the performance by George was impressive. Usually a short reliever, putting in one or two innings, George went 5.2 scoreless innings, scattering five hits. He struck out three batters and did not allow a walk.

Linfield moves to 37-12 and will wait to see the outcome of the Ill. Wesleyan, Cortland State game to see how championship Tuesday's schedule works out.