Summer 2022 - Fire Baseball 2022 NAIA National Champions

Pitcher Ronnie Voacolo soaks in the moment as the Fire celebrate winning the 2022 Avista NAIA World Series

LEWISTON, Idaho — So what?

If you spent any amount of time around the Southeastern baseball team during the 2022 season, it was a phrase you heard quite often. It was a rallying cry of sorts when things didn’t go a certain way.

During the last month-and-a-half of a 63-game schedule, it was a phrase that came up quite often.

Two losses Easter Weekend, so what?

Down seven after six outs in The Sun Conference Championship, so what?

Down four in the second game of the Opening Round, so what?

Down six to the defending champions in their first game of the World Series, so what?

None of those scenarios phased this team.

Southeastern thrived on adversity during a 59-4 season which saw the team win the regular season and tournament titles of the toughest conference in the NAIA, the Upland Bracket of the Opening Round and the Avista NAIA World Series.

During the week in Lewiston, the Fire won their first two games in their final at bats, getting a two-run walk-off homer from Sam Faith in the bottom of the ninth to beat Georgia Gwinnett 9-7, then picked up four in the top of the ninth against LSU Shreveport to win 8-4 in the second game.

A spot in the championship was clinched with the Fire scoring six runs after the fifth inning in front of over 3,100 navy and red clad fans backing the home-standing Lewis-Clark State Warriors to win 9-5.

The Fire trailed Tennessee Wesleyan 3-0 in the second, then saw a 6-4 lead turn into a 7-6 deficit during a threerun ninth in a game where the Red and Black committed five errors.

So what?

Southeastern got a two-out RBI single to right by Gary Lora to tie the game in the ninth and then got an RBI single to right from Shamir Morales in the bottom of the 10th to go to the championship game with an unblemished record.

The Fire trailed Lewis-Clark State by five in the fourth, but the team went back to work grinding out at bats and manufacturing runs, getting the deficit to two going to the bottom of the seventh. The Warriors answered with one of their own in the bottom of the inning, but the Fire refused to go quietly getting two in the ninth and threatened to tie or take the lead but were unable to do so.

It ended a 21-game win streak and put the team’s hopes of a national title in jeopardy. The Fire were 27 outs from elimination and facing a team in search of their 20th title with over 2,500 of their fans cheering them on and were going to be without first baseman Stephen Cullen, who posted a .471 on base percentage and .615 slugging percentage during the World Series.

Why not?

A quick start put the Fire up 4-0 after three, but of course it wouldn’t be that easy. The hosts answered with a five-run fifth to take the lead, but SEU answered with a run in the fifth on an RBI single by Faith to tie things back up.

Momentum took a hard right turn towards the kids from Lakeland during the seventh when Isaac Nunez singled to center to put the Fire up 6-5 and Jose Marcano walked to load the bases.

It was at that time the field was cleared due to lightning in the area and play was suspended until 8:15 the next morning.

So what?

The Fire got up and picked up where they left off. A fielding error pushed the

lead to two and Morales came through again after battling an injury on Thursday, with an RBI single to push the lead to eight. Two more scored on another error and a sacrifice fly turned it into a six-run seventh and put the Fire in control.

But the hosts wouldn’t go quietly in the ninth, getting two on and nobody out, but it was too late. Ronnie Voacolo closed the door, finishing his postseason with just two earned runs allowed in 7.2 innings with a 1-0 record and four saves, nine strikeouts and no walks.

The Fire set some lofty, yet very realistic goals for the season and was able to achieve them all. Nothing worth achieving ever comes easy, and it definitely wasn’t as easy as it looked for a team that won nearly 94% of its games.

“There was self-induced pressure, which is welcome, but there was pressure to win this,” said coach Adrian Dinkel. “Being No. 1 in the country all season long, a lot of people expect you to be in this situation and it’s not easy. So, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves and here we are now.”

And those were just the visible struggles you saw when it came to baseball.

“It just feels so good coming back from everything that I’ve gone through in life and just coming out here for one more year and getting it done feels amazing,” said Abdel Guadalupe after the championship.

Imagine what this team will be able to accomplish beyond the diamond.

“They are unbelievable kids, it’s a really good group of human beings,” said Dinkel. “I’m pretty hard on who I like, and I love this team; it’s a really good group of guys that did it right all the time and I felt it bled over into handling adversity.”