Wojo shines as Bulldogs claim SoCon title

Fred Jordan's phone rang at about 8:45 p.m. Saturday. On the line was The Citadel's ace pitcher Asher Wojciechowski.

"He said, 'I want the rock,' " reported Jordan, the Bulldogs' coach. "And I gave him two or three reasons why we may go with a different plan. He said, 'That's fine, but I'm pitching tomorrow.' And there wasn't any way I was going to argue with him."

His teammates gave him a five-run lead before he took the mound, and Wojciechowski pitched eight solid innings on three days' rest as top-seeded The Citadel routed No. 6 Western Carolina, 10-3, to win the Southern Conference baseball tournament title before 4,895 fans at Riley Park on Sunday afternoon.

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Citadel SoCon Champions

The Bulldogs won with a 10-3 victory over Western Carolina on Sunday at Riley Park to capture the Southern Conference title.

After watching his players celebrate The Citadel's eighth tournament championship and first since 2004, and after getting an ice-bucket dousing from son (and senior shortstop) Kyle Jordan, the Bulldogs' 19th-year coach reflected on a team that was picked to finish third or fourth in the league, yet led the SoCon from wire to wire to win

Wojo shines as Bulldogs claim eighth SoCon championship

the regular season title. Then, the Bulldogs went 4-0 in the tournament to claim both trophies in the same season for the first time since 1999.

The 42-20 Bulldogs did it with only one player, Wojciechowski, who made first-team all-SoCon.

"Team. Team," Jordan said. "The most unselfish group that we may ever have had. A very, very special team, and they are a fun group to be around."

Twenty years after The Citadel made its first and only trip to the College World Series, in 1990, these Bulldogs will have a chance to dream of Omaha again. Sunday's victory clinched the SoCon's automatic bid to the 64-team NCAA regionals for The Citadel, and the Bulldogs will learn their regional destination today on the NCAA selection show (12:30 p.m., ESPN).

"Everyone (in the regionals) will be fired up to play, and it will be the same with us," said senior second baseman Bryan Altman. "We will just be ourselves, that's the bottom line."

That's been plenty good enough, as the Bulldogs enter the NCAA regionals with a 12-game win streak, the second-longest streak in the nation. Fred Jordan could not have scripted a better SoCon tournament for his team, except maybe for the ninth-inning brawl with Elon on Thursday night that resulted in an injured left shoulder for the coach.

Even that worked to the Bulldogs' advantage, as The Citadel lost two little-used reserves to suspensions, while Elon lost a starting infielder and a front-line pitcher for three games each. The breaks continued on Saturday, when Elon freshman pitcher Kyle Webb threw a ball away with two out in the ninth inning, helping the Bulldogs rally for a 6-5 victory in 10 innings.

On Sunday, Western Carolina coach Bobby Moranda took the same risk as Fred Jordan, starting ace pitcher Matt Benedict on three days' rest. Benedict (9-2) gave up five runs in the first inning and two in the second, draining drama from the title game after a thriller of a tournament that featured a record four extra-inning games, and six decided by walk-off hits.

Meanwhile, Wojciechowski (12-2) scattered seven hits, walked one and struck out eight in his eight innings. He threw 100 pitches three days after throwing 117 pitches in eight innings of a 9-5 win over Furman on Wednesday.

Wojciechowski came out for the ninth, but only to be removed by Fred Jordan. The 6-4, 235-pound right-hander, a possible first-round pick in the upcoming major league baseball draft, doffed his cap as Bulldogs partisans gave him a standing ovation.

"That's something I've wanted to do since I've been here, to have the ball in a situation like this," said Wojciechowski, who pitched two years at Beaufort High School after his family moved there from Michigan. "I couldn't not go out there. I had to have the ball, and I'm just glad coach gave it to me."

The Citadel's Nick Orvin opened the game with a ringing double off the left-field wall, and the Bulldogs' followed with four straight singles, including RBI singles from Brad Felder, Altman and sophomore first baseman Justin Mackert, named the tournament's most outstanding player. In the second, two singles and a two-out, bad-hop double from Kyle Jordan made it 7-0, and the game was never in doubt after that.

"Matt was our best option," said Moranda, whose 37-21-1 team came out of the losers' bracket and had to play twice Saturday to make the finals. "And if you look at it, they hit a ball hard to start the game, then hit a lot of ground balls that, three feet the other way, could be a double-play ball or an out. Matt's a ground-ball pitcher, and if they go in the right spots, it could be a different situation."

Kyle Jordan and David Greene each drove in three runs for The Citadel, and Jordan, Orvin, Felder and Matt Simonelli had two hits each. Kyle Jordan's favorite moment, however, was pouring that ice water on his dad, a moment he thought might never come.

"That was pretty nice," he said. "I remember we came in as freshmen and made the championship game, but we weren't able to finish it off. We always thought, 'Next year, next year.' And then we realized it would be tough. So it go out as seniors like this, it feels really good."