“He couldn’t talk after game one,” Sinclair coach Steve Dintaman said. “They diagnosed him with a throat infection, and he was on a Z-Pak.
“Talk about grinding through it. He went from Urgent Care to back on the mound, and he helped us win a championship.”
Short on available arms, Dintaman turned to Anders to pitch the final four innings of a 13-5 win over host Kellogg as the Tartans won their fourth game in four days to advance to the junior college World Series in Enid, Okla., for the first time.
Sinclair closer Travis Rowland, who will play at Northern Kentucky next season, was named the North Regional MVP after notching saves in the first three games, and Tartan outfielders Tyler Cowles (Ohio State) and Ben Myers (Fairmont State) joined Anders on the all-tournament team.
Asked how he shook off the illness, Anders said: “I was more focused on getting my team where it deserved to be, to show people we could get to the next level. I was just caught up in the moment.”
The fifth-ranked Tartans (50-10), who tied the school record for wins they set last season, begin play in the 10-team event at noon Sunday against East regional winner Monroe Community College (33-14) of Rochester, N.Y.
“It’s a life-changing moment when you’ve been in a program and have been working at it for a long time,” said Dintaman, who is in his ninth season and has finished runner-up in the regional twice. “This program has been around for more than 40 years and has had a lot of good coaches and players come through it. To finally be the team that gets over the hump is great.”
Dintaman didn’t know if he had another dominant team going into the season because of inexperience on the mound.
But he credits assistant Mike Parr with shoring up that component, and he knew he could count on Anders.
“He’s the guy we’ve been leaning on forever,” Dintaman said.
Anders will have to stay on the Z-Pak a bit longer, and he didn’t come out of the clinching game unscathed.
He ended up beneath a mound of celebrating teammates after the final out and received a nasty scratch on the left side of his face after being cleated by a teammate.
But he joked that he hoped the gash would turn into a permanent scar as a reminder of winning the championship. And he’s making a habit of ending up on the bottom of dogpiles.
He triggered one when he tossed a shutout to lead Beavercreek to a district title. And it happened again when he recorded the final out that secured a league crown for Sinclair last season.
“Hopefully, this wasn’t the last one of my career,” he said.
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