Wesleyan beats Landmark Christian for Class A title

"Last year we had a bunch of seniors who will probably play pro ball," said Wesleyan coach Mike Shaheen. "These five seniors won't, but they did the same thing last year's seniors did. They brought home the cup and did everything they had to do to win.

"This year we might have been a little bit of an underdog, and sometimes that makes things sweeter."

Despite a nervous first inning, Wesleyan pitcher Devin Stanton shut down a Landmark team that had racked Wolves' pitching for 15 runs and 15 hits over the first two games of the series. Stanton settled down after allowing a solo home run to Landmark's Colby Wren in the bottom of the first inning.

" I wasn't 100 percent, and I was a little tied, but once I got into the late innings my adrenaline got going," Stanton said. "Getting those runs in the first inning was huge. In the second game [of the series], we did everything we could to give them the game. We just wanted to score some runs in the second game."

Stanton closed out Wesleyan's state title run by striking out seven of the last nine batters he faced. Stanton ended the game with nine strikeouts and scattered five hits.

"Once I started locating my fastball, I kept them off balance and that really helped," Stanton said.

While Stanton was shutting down Landmark, his teammates were roughing up pitcher Blake Austin, who caught the first five innings of Saturday's first game, then pitched the final two innings. Austin started the deciding game and went 5-2/3 innings.

Wesleyan opened a 7-1 lead on Kevin O'Leary's three-run blast in the third inning. The Wolves closed the game out by getting four runs in the sixth off Landmark reliever Dustin Brantley. Lee Ellis singled to drive in a run, then Fithian smacked a double with the bases loaded to drive in three runs.