Kyle Lazer did not pitch Friday night like a guy trying to extend a season.
He pitched like a guy trying to drag an entire program with him into one more day.
With West Chester facing elimination in the Division II National Championship Series, Lazer delivered the kind of outing that becomes part of a program’s permanent memory: a complete-game, 11-strikeout performance in a 12-4 win over Tampa at the USA Baseball National Training Complex.
It was West Chester’s first complete-game victory in the National Finals since 2012, when Joe Gunkel authored two of them on the way to the program’s first national championship.
Now, after Lazer’s final collegiate start, West Chester will play Tampa one more time Saturday afternoon in a winner-take-all Game 3 for the national title.
“Kyle Lazer — what else can you say,” West Chester head coach Mike LaRosa said. “The effort he gave us tonight is absolutely the story of the game. This guy sitting next to me just competes, and we gave him the ball in the biggest spot in his career, and he absolutely made the most of it.”
Lazer allowed four runs, only one earned, on six hits and five walks. He struck out 11. More importantly, he never let the game get away from West Chester after Tampa briefly punched back.
“This outing means a lot,” Lazer said. “You’ll never meet a group as close as us, so I felt like I wasn’t going out there tonight just for me, but for this entire team, our fans, families, alumni, etc. I knew we couldn’t be done yet.”
West Chester’s offense made sure it wasn’t.
The Golden Rams scored 11 of their 12 runs with two outs, repeatedly turning innings Tampa seemed close to escaping into the kind of damage that changes a championship series.
“That’s been our bread and butter all year,” LaRosa said. “All year long, I’ve felt like our ability to hit with two outs is a back breaker for opposing teams, and it did the job again tonight.”
Harry Middlebrooks provided the biggest swing, launching a 408-foot solo homer in the sixth inning to break a 4-4 tie and give West Chester the lead for good. It was his first home run of the season and the latest chapter in a stunning National Finals run.
“To be quite honest, I don’t know that I really saw this coming,” Middlebrooks said. “I had a tough start to the year, but when Simpson went down, I knew I’d have a chance to step up, and it was a chance I had been waiting on all season.”
From there, West Chester kept applying pressure.
Patrick Gozdan drove in three runs. Christian Michak went 3-for-4 with two RBIs. Austin Stalker added a two-run homer in the ninth. Eight of the nine hitters in West Chester’s lineup recorded at least one hit.
The Golden Rams jumped ahead in the first on Gozdan’s bases-loaded walk, then added another run in the third on Tanner Donati’s RBI single. Tampa answered in the bottom of the third, when Jake Books hit a three-run homer after an error extended the inning.
West Chester regained the lead in the fifth on Landen Rozich’s two-run single, only for Tampa to tie it again in the bottom half.
Then Middlebrooks changed the game.
Then Lazer finished it.
He worked through the eighth. He came back for the ninth. He recorded two more strikeouts in the final inning and walked off the mound having saved West Chester’s season and protected its bullpen for the biggest game of the year.
“Yeah, everyone got an extra day of rest, which for this group is huge,” Lazer said. “I know everyone will be available tomorrow, and I know a guy like Costa, who was probably available tonight if we had needed him, is going to absolutely empty the tank and do everything he can to help us win tomorrow.”
West Chester improved to 48-11 with the win. Tampa, now 50-9, suffered its first loss behind starter BJ Bailey, who entered the night unbeaten but allowed five runs over 5 2/3 innings.
Now the season comes down to one game.
“We start fresh tomorrow,” LaRosa said. “Game three in College Baseball is like game seven at the highest level, the playbook kind of goes out the window, and you just compete.”
Lazer had one more way to describe it.
“Tomorrow is game three,” he said, “and game threes in settings like this tend to be weird, so let’s do everything we can to make it weird.”
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