Wednesday, May 26, 2010

JHU pair sports playoff experience (from d3baseball.com)


Johns Hopkins sophomores Sam Eagleson and Sam Wernick figured to have a hard time topping the season they enjoyed with the 2009 Blue Jay football team. After all, the duo helped guide Johns Hopkins to the Centennial Conference title, a school-record 10 wins and the NCAA quarterfinals. The trip to the quarterfinals was the first in school history and was highlighted by wins at previously undefeated Hampden-Sydney (23-7) and Thomas More (31-29) in the first and second rounds of the playoffs, respectively.

Nearly six months after that magical ride ended, consider it topped. With Eagleson pitching and Wernick sharing duties in right field, the Johns Hopkins baseball team is ranked No. 1 in the D3baseball.com Top 25 entering this week's Division III College World Series. The Blue Jays cruised to the Centennial Conference Championship,knocked off three-time defending Mid-Atlantic Regional Champion Kean, 8-3, on Sunday to earn a spot in the CWS and fashion a 43-5 record. Uncluded in the 43 wins was a 32-game winning streak--the longest winning streak in the nation this season and one shy of the school-record 3-game run JHU enjoyed to open the 2004 season.

The 43 wins this season are also one better than JHU accumulated in 2008, when the Blue Jays came within one strike of winning the national championship.

JHU's hopes for that elusive national championship are bolstered by the play of Eagleson and Wernick, who arrived at Homewood as freshman three months after the bitter defeat to Trinity in the 2008 title game. Eagleson earned Second Team All-Centennial honors as a cornerback in football in 2009 as he finished sixth on the team with 53 tackles and added team-highsc of six interceptions and nine pass breakups. In two seasons, he counts 97 tackles, 15 pass breakups and seven interceptions to his credit. Wernick, who earned ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District honors in football and baseball last year, is just as productive as Eagleson as a wide receiver on the other side of the ball. Despite being slowed by injury early in the season, he totaled 51 receptions for 451 yards and one touchdown and counts 88 receptions for 1,114 yards and five TD's to his credit in two seasons.

Those individual efforts in football also figured to be hard to top. Again, consider it done.

Eagleson didn't throw a pitch for the Blue Jays as a freshman, but heads to Appleton, Wisconsin, this year with an 11-0 record, a 2.45 ERA and 54 strikeouts against just 22 walks in 73.1 innings. The opposition has hit just. 207 against him this season and he has already picked up the Centennial Conference Pitcher of the Year awards, with a shot at being named to the D3baseball.com All-American team this week. (EDITORS NOTE: Eagleson was named to the All-American team the day after this article was published)

Wernick has played in 34 games with 21 starts in right field. He is hitting .367 and ranks second on the team with 17 stolen bases on 19 attempts. He counts 33 hits and 27 runs scored to his credit and uses his wide receiver speed to track down balls in the alley.

Johns Hopkins will be making its third appearance in the Division III World Series, all of which have come under the wathful eye of head coach Bob Babb, who needs just one win to reach 900 in his career. Hopkins grabbed a third-place showing in 1989 and added the runner-up finish in 2008.

If Eagleson and Wernick have anything to do with it, they may just have what it takes to top that.

Also, Johns Hopkins head coach Bob Babb was interviewed on WMAR in Baltiomre on Tuesday morning, with his team headed to Appleton for the second time in three seasons. See the full video below!



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