'Surreal' 9th-inning Grand Slam vaults Ball State to 1st MAC tournament title under Maloney

MUNCIE, Ind. — Never before had four seconds flipped the minds and hearts of the Cardinals so suddenly.

Adam Tellier, still tightly gripping his bat with both hands, watched the ball sail to its ultimate destination beyond the left field wall. His teammates in the dugout, almost in disbelief, echoed shouts of "Come on!" before fully accepting the storybook scenario.

Then there was head coach Rich Maloney, who began his Ball State baseball journey in 1996 before any of those playing in Saturday's Mid-American Conference tournament championship were born. Manning the third base line, he gazed at the "miraculous" Grand Slam for a moment before greeting his hero with a high-5.

As Tellier rounded for home plate to meet a mob of Cardinals exploding with excitement, the 58-year-old Maloney spryly jogged right behind him. The weight of 18 years, over 600 wins and six previous shortcomings in the championship was all but ready to dissolve.

It was shortly after that Jacob Hartlaub closed out Ball State's roller coaster 12-9 victory over No. 1-seeded Kent State, marking the program's second MAC tournament title (2006) and first under the legendary skipper.

"It's surreal right now. Just so happy for my players. I'm happy for alums because, like I say, we've accomplished everything we could in this program in the time I've had the privilege of coaching at Ball State, 18 years, minus punching our ticket," Maloney said. "I'm just happy for our whole Ball State family because we have a great, great tradition, and this is what we needed to happen and it finally happened. I'm just thankful."

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Maloney repeatedly used "grit" to describe this BSU bunch, and the team needed every ounce it had to break through.

When Ball State led 8-2 midway through the seventh inning with starting pitcher Ty Weatherly still on the mound, the win seemed secure. But a leadoff double ended the fifth-year hurler's strong day, and top relievers Sam Klein and Ryan Brown, who both looked stellar in Wednesday's first-round contest, spiraled in short-lived stints that squandered all momentum Ball State possessed.

Klein allowed four runs to just one out, and Brown threw 10 straight balls and allowed a single to make it an 8-7 game before Hartlaub was asked to stop the bleeding. He entered with the count 3-0 and threw a first-pitch ball to load the bases before miraculously responding with a three-pitch strikeout and a lineout to end the frame.

With the teams' confidence reversed, though, the Cardinals stranded a runner in the top of the eighth inning as the Golden Flashes continued their onslaught with a two-run, go-ahead homer with zero outs.

While Hartlaub kept his squad within striking distance by rebounding with three flyouts to strand a runner, Ball State's chances looked bleak when its first two batters got out in the top of the ninth. KSU had deployed closer Mitchell Scott, the nation's leader in saves (15), and there was no indication that BSU's offense would ignite.

"I believed in them. I knew we could still do it," Maloney said. "But with that being said, I was heartbroken because we had it in our hand and then we let it slip away and I was saying, 'This can't happen again. Not again.'"

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It looked like an even more gut-wrenching scene than last year's MAC tournament final, when the hosting Cardinals won their first two games before dropping both of their chances in the championship against Central Michigan.

Unlike in 2022, however, Ball State couldn't afford to take a mulligan. All of Maloney's top arms had been used, and with pitching depth being a detriment all spring, upsetting the conference's top offense, which throttled BSU for 54 runs over the final three games of the regular season, after a collapse would've been a long shot.

That's when BSU's "grit" came into play. The team was lethal with two outs all tournament, scoring 14 of its 25 total runs in such situations, and the final four came amid the utmost drama.

Down to Ball State's final strike, fifth-year second baseman Justin Conant ripped a double down the left-field line. Fifth-year star third baseman Ryan Peltier then reached base for the fourth time on the day after a four-pitch walk, and following a KSU mound visit, junior right fielder Decker Scheffler walked on five pitches.

In a 1-1 count with Kent State's closer on the ropes, Ball State's senior shortstop was gifted a hanging breaking ball and didn't miss it.

"I was just watching it go. I knew I caught it, put a good swing on it and I finally got a pitch up in the zone that I could do something with," Tellier said. "Just being able to live in the moment and enjoy it for our team. It was just definitely one of the biggest moments and most fun moments of my life."

Although Tellier is one of BSU's stars of the spring, he entered the postseason hitless in his final four outings of the regular season. Yet he recovered to win tournament MVP, leading his team with nine RBI and bookending the journey with multi-run homers in the first inning of Game 1 and the ninth inning of the final, which Maloney dubbed "the biggest shot in Ball State history."

"Adam Tellier, what can you say? How clutch can you possibly be? A three-run homer to start the tournament through the wind, and then a Grand Slam to win it," Maloney said. "A star shined today."

Hartlaub, now given a chance at redemption after surrendering the lead in the eighth, said he didn't even watch the Grand Slam. He was "locked in" on the bench and trying to "get back to neutral," an emphasis of BSU's pitching staff all year.

He got the first two outs quickly in the bottom of the ninth before tensions rose again. A two-out double, a hit-by-pitch and a wild pitch that advanced both runners into scoring position once again put BSU's victory in jeopardy.

It took seven pitches to get put the final Kent State batter away with a strikeout looking. Hartlaub roared in triumph, threw his cap in the air and spread his arms out wide to greet the many Cardinals sprinting to form a dogpile on the mound.

It was a spirited finish, one that Hartlaub was never guaranteed to be a part of when suffering back tightness and soreness throughout this season, which limited him to just one pitching appearance during a six-week period from March to May.

He dedicated the win to Maloney and the teammates from last year's group who couldn't return.

"It feels amazing. He's pushed us all year long," Hartlaub said of Maloney. "Last year stung like crazy. We didn't want to go through that again. We just dug deep and we did it for him. We did it for each other and we got it done this year."

Nothing was given to Ball State. The team was "embarrassed," according to Maloney, at home in its final series of the year with the MAC regular-season title within reach. The team battled pitching injuries, the late-season departure of pitching coach Larry Scully and faced the MAC's top-3 left-handed starters in the tournament, including the Pitcher of the Year, a daunting task as Maloney said BSU hit just .245 against lefties all season.

Then the Cardinals found themselves in the hole again, blowing a big lead with few reliable pitching options left to turn to. It had all the makings another "heartbreaking" conclusion, Maloney said. They needed a spectacular moment and got one against arguably the best closer in the country.

Maloney was in tears immediately after the final out, and his voice still cracked later on as the "unbelievable" nature of it all still hadn't yet sunk in.

He thought about the thousands of battles he's been through with hundreds of players over the years. To Maloney, they're all "family," and his favorite part of the job is building a "brotherhood" every year.

Those previous shortcomings, while they may not have felt like it then, prepared him and this year's group for their moment.

As his guys compiled in the infield, smiling, crying, taking pictures and executing the traditional water-jug pour on their leader, Maloney knew it was worth the wait.

"This etches us, finally. It just etches us because (in) our program we've done everything. We've had great teams, eight first-round draft picks, numerous players of the year numerous pitchers of the year, major leaguers," Maloney said. "But we haven't under my tutelage, unfortunately, been able to take these guys to punch a ticket, and today we finally punched that ticket. I'm just so thankful."

Gus Martin is a sports reporter at The Star Press. Follow him on Twitter @GusMartin_SP, and contact him at gmartin@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Grand Slam Ball State Rich Maloney first MAC tournament championship