Birmingham-Southern is still swinging. Now playing for a school that technically no longer exists, the Panthers kept their hopes of winning a national championship alive on Saturday with a 9-7 comeback win over Randolph-Macon in the Division III World Series. Jackson Webster hit a walk-off, two-run homer in the ninth for Birmingham-Southern, which closed officially closed on Friday. The Panthers squandered a 4-0 lead and fell behind 7-4 in the eighth before scoring three runs to tie it.
Birmingham-Southern College’s leadership voted to close the school down last Friday. As of last Wednesday morning, a GoFundMe page had grown to $105,000 with an anonymous donor giving $2,500. Trey Hines, the sports information director for the school from Birmingham, Alabama, for at least a few more days, said the support has been overwhelming.
"It's been crazy," Hines said by phone.
Before taking a chartered flight to Cleveland, the team gathered Wednesday at Birmingham-Southern one last time for a light workout. Birmingham-Southern advanced to the World Series in Eastlake, Ohio, on Saturday despite the team being flattened by what was initially thought to be food poisoning. Two players had to be hospitalized and others received fluid intravenously behind the dugout during the Panthers' win over Denison.
"Baseball miracle, right?" said player Jackson Webster if the team's success so far. "The storybook isn't finished."
The Panthers squandered a 4-0 lead Saturday night and fell behind 7-4 before scoring three runs in the eighth — getting back-to-back RBI singles by pinch-hitters in the rally — to tie it.
Then came the ninth and a moment seemingly extracted from a Hollywood script or Disney movie.
Andrew Dutton walked leading off before Webster, who hit a two-run homer in the first, took an ugly swing on the first pitch. It was so bad and out of character that he stepped out of the batter's box and tapped his chest while apologizing to coach Jan Weisberg.
Webster didn't miss the next pitch.
Connecting on a hanging curve ball, he sent his homer over the wall in left field to set off a wild celebration on the field and in the stands of Classic Park.
As he rounded third and was greeted at the plate by his delirious teammates, a rowdy group of Sigma Chi fraternity brothers from the school who had kept the faith when things looked bleak danced in the aisles.
It was another memorable moment in a season full of them for Birmingham-Southern and a team bonded by adversity.
"Just true grit," said Weisberg, whose 17th season at the school has presented challenges he could have never imagined. "The fight in these guys is the story of the night."
It's a story that's getting better by the day, and being chronicled by a documentary film crew that was able to capture the team's unbridled jubilation.
Webster said the Panthers can feel eyes on them along with the support from people who can identify with their emotions in playing for a school they loved but his now gone.
"It's a hard pill to swallow," Webster said. "We don't have anything to go back to so we take the field feeling we have nothing to lose. And team with nothing to lose is hard to beat, which is why I think we were so calm today because of all the adversity we've gone through.
"And it's pretty cool having all the cameras around."
Birmingham-Southern, which lost the national title game in 2019, advanced in the double-elimination tourney and will play the loser between Salve Regina and Wisconsin-Whitewater on Sunday.
Based on the wild scene outside their charter buses, it might be tough for anyone from Birmingham-Southern to get much sleep.
