Roemmich Rewards All-Hands-On-Deck Championship Effort with Walk-Off Winner
MARION, Ind. – Six Crossroads League Tournament games in a 100-hour span. A fourth straight trip to the NAIA Baseball National Championship Opening Round already secured. A three-peat of the CL Regular Season Title in the bag. Yet the No. 9 Taylor baseball team (46-9) hunted, and got, the ultimately required fifth CLT win on Monday night to become back-to-back tournament champions of the Crossroads League and snatch the program’s second straight sweep of the CL Championships.
Playing their cross-county rival in fourth-seeded Indiana Wesleyan (29-20), who had upset and shut out top-seeded TU on Saturday, the Trojans needed to defeat the Wildcats twice on Monday to earn the 2025 CLT banner.
After getting stellar pitching efforts from Alec Hershberger and Conner Miller in a 3-1 win Monday afternoon to make the if-necessary CLT Championship Game a reality later that night, the Trojans and the Wildcats were deadlocked in a 4-4 tie through much of the tournament’s final contest.
In the ninth inning, Jake Boyer (7-2) stranded a pair of IWU runners in scoring position with a gritty strikeout to preserve the 4-all tie, and Fletcher Roemmich brought the title back to Taylor on a walk-off line-drive single in a bases-loaded, two-outs situation for a 5-4 win.
The winner-take-all championship game did not start smoothly for TU, as the tournament hosts made loud two-out contact in the first frame with an RBI single followed by a two-run homer from Grant Payson.
The Wildcats extended their lead to 4-0 on a solo homer from Nick Wiley in the second inning, and the Trojans left five men aboard as they were held scoreless through two.
Luke Sutter put an end to Taylor’s missed opportunities in the third frame as he sent a two-run shot over the right field wall to give the Purple and Grey life, trailing 4-2.
The third inning continued with a double from Luke Picchiotti and three walks – the last of which was drawn by pinch-hitter Nate Simpson for an RBI. Mason David recorded the game-tying RBI on a bases-loaded groundout.
Working with a depleted arsenal of fresh arms and the game knotted at 4-4, head coach Kyle Gould and pitching coach Justin Barber pressed all the right buttons as the evening wore on and the intensity rose.
After freshman JJ Prendergast got through the first couple frames with two strikeouts, David Platt shut down Indiana Wesleyan with three innings of one-hit, four-strikeout ball.
Oft-used arms were then asked to give whatever was left in their respective tanks, as Gage Gongwer, Brody Fine and Dalton Swinehart each worked a scoreless inning, combining for four strikeouts as the game reached the ninth frame.
Boyer, who started on Saturday versus IWU, battled through a pressure-packed ninth inning to put the game in the hands of the Trojan lineup, which had already produced a walk-off CLT victory over Mount Vernon Nazarene on Friday, May 2.
Brayden Manning got the rally started in the ninth when he was hit by a pitch, and Sutter singled to right field to put runners on the corners with one out. After Sutter swiped second base, Picchiotti was intentionally walked. The Wildcat defense then got out number two at the plate on a ground ball, leaving the fate of the night in Roemmich’s hands.
The junior second baseman Roemmich laced a single to right-center and was swarmed by teammates in an electric celebration under the lights of Crandall Family Field, where the Trojans would soon be presented their seventh CLT Championship trophy with Gould at the helm.
In Monday’s first potential championship game for Indiana Wesleyan, TU built a 2-0 lead in the third inning with a two-run double by Sutter.
The Wildcats scored on an unearned run in the fourth frame, but the Trojans answered right back in the bottom of the inning on a sacrifice fly from Sam Gladd that made it 3-1.
Hershberger tossed 4.2 innings to start the day for Taylor, and he made plenty of big-time pitches to amass four strikeouts with just three hits and no earned runs allowed.
Miller (8-0) continued his dominant season with 3.2 innings of four-strikeout shutout ball, yet the senior left Nathan Frady in a tough spot with one gone in the ninth.
Frady inherited runners on second and third, but the sophomore promptly induced a pop out before cleanly handling a comebacker and accurately flipping the ball to Manning for the 27th out and his fourth save of the season.
No. 9 Taylor’s two victories on Monday lifted the 2025 squad to 46 wins, breaking the program’s single-season mark of 44 victories set in 2018. TU learns which teams will join the Trojans in the NAIA Baseball National Championship Opening Round – held at Winterholter Field from May 12-15 – when the Selection Show airs Wednesday, May 7, at 5 p.m.