Salt Lake Community College’s baseball team will play in the Junior College World Series national championship game this weekend in Grand Junction, Colorado.
The Bruins, seeded eighth when the 10-team tournament began last Saturday, advanced to the championship game with a 12-2 rout of the Lake Land (Illinois) Lakers on Thursday afternoon. Lake Land handed SLCC a heartbreaking 11-9 defeat on Monday to send coach DG Nelson’s squad to the one-loss bracket, but the Bruins battled back with come-from-behind wins on Tuesday and Wednesday and got their revenge on Thursday.
The Bruins are 4-1 in the tournament and 47-11 overall. They will play either No. 1 seed Walters State of Tennessee or the No. 7 McLennan (Texas) Highlanders in the championship game.
Walters State, undefeated in the tournament, will meet McLennan late Thursday night for the right to move on.
SLCC has had to battle from behind several times in the tournament, but not on Thursday.
The Bruins won the game in seven innings via the run rule after closer Dan Brousseau, a Murray High product, shut the door on the Lakers in the seventh.
The Bruins had scored five runs in the top of the seventh to take the 12-2 lead.
With two outs, Colton Stanton walked, Hudson Manwaring was hit by a pitch, and Jalen Seward delivered a clutch two-run double. Then Avery Doezie hit a two-run double, and eventually scored on an outfield error to give SLCC that all-important 10-run lead.
Jaxon Grossman got the start for SLCC and picked up the win.
The Bruins, who were behind 10-0 in the first inning Wednesday before rallying back to beat Florence-Darlington 17-16 in a wild one, took a 2-0 lead early Thursday as Taylor Ayala walked to score a run and a balk brought home another run.
The Bruins pushed their lead to 5-0 in the second inning as Chandler Reber hit a solo home run and Manwaring delivered a two-run bomb.
Lake Land scored two runs on four singles to cut its deficit to 5-2 in the second.
SLCC went up 7-2 in the top of the fifth after Jake Olsen led off with a triple and scored on Reber’s sacrifice fly. Jake Mortensen singled and scored on an error to pad the lead.