The 2024 DII baseball championship finals field was full of familiar faces. Central Missouri has more wins than just about any college baseball team this century, Tampa has more national championships than any DII team this century and Southern New Hampshire and Angelo State seem to have taken up residency at the USA Baseball National Training Complex in Cary, NC.
And then there is Indiana (PA). The Crimson Hawks are making their first tournament appearance since 1990, won their first tournament game since 1988, and are now in Cary for the first time ever. It has been an eventful ride: they swept through their first regional in more than 30 years and came back from one game down in the super regionals to advance to Cary. The comeback kids continue to wipe out nationally ranked competition, most recently, coming from behind to stun Central Missouri and send the Mules home — the first No. 1 seed to go two and out in the current format of the DII baseball championship.
DII BASEBALL CENTRAL: Championship hub | Bracket
Head coach Steve Kline has been the fire starter behind one of the more remarkable turnarounds in DII baseball. The Crimson Hawks were 2-35 in 2021, and at the conclusion of the season, they hired Kline. Kline is a former MLB pitcher drafted out of West Virginia in 1993, three years after the last IUP tournament appearance. His career lasted 11 years on the bump before spending several years as a coach in the San Francisco Giants' organization during the three World Series runs in the 2010s.
It was somewhat happenstance that Kline wound up at IUP. Most of the people he worked with in the Giants' organization were gone, which made his interest in pro ball begin to wane. He grew up nearby in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, and knew the Hawks' athletic director Todd Garzarelli since childhood. Garzarelli offered Kline the job and, seemingly overnight, the turnaround began.
"I just took a leap of faith," Kline told me. "He told me what I was walking into, and I like challenges like that. I think it's being a Pennsylvania boy close to home for me. I just know the type of mentality that the kids have. It was a great fit for me. The town reminded me of my hometown. I get to see my wife and my kids more. I was happy about it."
And just like that, the Crimson Hawks were a competitive baseball team. Their massive turnaround — a 25-win improvement in Kline's first year — flew under the radar in a loaded PSAC where teams like Millersville, West Chester, Mercyhurst, and Seton Hill were becoming regulars to Cary. The transition went well, but as Kline recalled, he didn't get to bring in a lot of "his guys" just yet.
"I think I had maybe four guys that I brought in that I thought could help us a little bit with toughness," Kline said. "And I tried to recruit a lot of football, wrestling and basketball players. Just that competitive spirit of them all could really help. I got fortunate. I got four good ones that helped us through this whole process. But the guys that I had on that team, they were really hungry and willing to play for me."
He pointed to players like Markus Cestra, Nick Hess, Jake Cherry, and Ian Logue as the Crimson Hawks who helped lay the foundation of what Kline was trying to achieve. But then he and his assistant Kyle Nicholson — who played for Kline in the Giants' organization and has been his wingman at IUP since Day 1 — started to find the right pieces. "We recognize talent from being in the pro side," Kline said. "We just evaluate and we put a good team together. We try to put team guys together. It's not all about just the individual, how hard he throws, or how far he hits it. We try to find pieces of the puzzle that make us better."
While Kline tries to separate his days as a pro from his new life, he certainly takes advantage of what he learned — and it's clearly paying off. What he learned started with former Giants general manager, Brian Sabean. "He was a [New York Yankees' owner George] Steinbrenner guy," Kline said. "He came from the Yankee Way, and he preached it to us as coaches. He preached loyalty to each other and to the team.
"If you ever looked at those Giants' teams, they didn't have a big stellar name. They just had good pitching and guys who didn't strike out, guys who could battle, make contact, and just believed in each other. The team concept is the whole thing you got to preach. That was the 'Giant Way' back in the day. It was all about the team, about the name on the front, not the name on the back."
HISTORY! IUP baseball battles back for a 4-3 win against top-ranked and number one seed Central Missouri.
— IUP Baseball (@IUPBaseball)
It’s the first NCAA DII College World Series victory in program history. The game-ending double play was upheld after replay review.
Sound familiar? These Crimson Hawks, on paper, don't jump off the page. But somehow, here they are, one game away from the national semifinals. This team, which is rewriting its record books on a daily basis, sent Central Missouri home. "You said it right," said Kline. "When you said cardiac kids, we just have fun. We're relaxed. We're playing baseball. We're having fun. But we're not tourists either. We're here to do a job. Sometimes, if you watch the Cinderella, Man, you love that guy that's one punch away from chopping the giants down. We just wanted to be able to play great baseball against great teams and find out where we stood."
Just who are the Crimson Hawks? Ricardo Aponte, who leads the team in hitting with a mere .313 batting average, scored the winning run against Central Missouri. He was driven in by Brady Yard, who has a team-high .850 OPS, on a sacrifice fly, nothing flashy, but you don't need a 20 home run guy when you do the little things right. In fact, the Crimson Hawks don't even have a 10 home run guy, with Harrison Pontoli's seven homers tops on the team. The pitching staff has a very modest 5.06 ERA and 1.53 WHIP and is led by Mark Edeburn, Jake Black, and Derrick Shields. None are 90-mile-per-hour flamethrowers, but "they're just mixing," Kline said. "The pitchability is really good. We mix our stuff up. We can throw any pitch in any count. I think that just kept us in bay right there with them." The lockdown closer? There is none, as six different players recorded a save, with Bryce Devan shutting the door on Central Missouri.
Up next is a rematch against Point Loma, who staved off a late comeback and defeated IUP 2-1 in the opening game at Cary. Win or lose that game, these Crimson Hawks have left their mark. And you have a feeling it's not just in this moment, but now, when you talk about the PSAC and the Millersvilles and West Chesters and Seton Hills and East Stroudsburgs, you need to add the IUPs.
"At first, we wanted to see if we belonged," Kline said. "Now, we know we belong. We just want to make the PSAC proud. We want the town of Indiana to be proud of us. They've been so supportive and it's been great. It's always good to have some underdog stories in sports. We like that role right now where we're at."
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