26 Runs, 20 Years and One Big Dogpile

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Someone has to be at the bottom of every human dogpile.

And when Miami Baseball won its first regular-season conference championship in 20 years Saturday at Ball State, that lucky/unlucky guy was junior pitcher Carson Byers.

After Byers recorded his third swinging strikeout of the inning to seal a RedHawk title, he clenched both fists to the heavens, threw his hat and glove in the air…and immediately took a linebacker-worthy hit from catcher David Novak as the celebration began.

"Honestly, I blacked out – I didn't feel a thing," Byers laughed. "Being the pitcher, obviously you're the guy that everyone jumps on…but the vibes were super-high.

"I was blessed to be in that position and I was super excited; everyone was yelling and I couldn't have drawn it up any better myself." Ball State Baseball vs Miami on May 17, 2025. Photo by Samantha Blankenship/Ball State University.

Ball State Baseball vs Miami on May 17, 2025. Photo by Samantha Blankenship/Ball State University.

Second-year head coach Brian Smiley said those next few minutes were a bit of a blur.

"I just remember looking up and getting doused. Somebody hit me with a freezing cold cooler of water, and then after that it was just players coming up giving high fives. It's all the stuff that you enjoy," he recalled.

Shortstop Dillon Baker agreed. "It was one of my favorite experiences of my life," he said simply.

The RedHawks had entered that final game of the regular season knowing they needed to win to earn a share of the league title. Miami, Kent State and Ball State all headed into last weekend with a shot at the crown, meaning the Red and White would have to take care of business on the road against a talented opponent. Then, after the RedHawks and Cardinals split the first two games of the series in Muncie, Ind., it all came down to Saturday.

And with the stakes at their absolute highest, Miami came through…in one of the wildest games in recent program history.

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It lasted four hours and 20 minutes.

There were 44 combined hits and 42 runs.

(Read that last line again!)

Two hours into the game, the scoreboard read 14-9…and the third inning was just wrapping up.

An early 11-run lead for the visitors shrunk to 18-14 by the seventh inning.

Dom Krupinski

Eight different RedHawks finished with at least two hits in the contest. Eight Miami players drove in runs.

Ball State used 12 pitchers in the game. Four of them didn't record a single out.

And with a strong wind blowing straight out to center field, nine different players hit home runs, including six RedHawks.

But when the dust finally settled, Miami prevailed with a gritty 26-16 victory in eight innings.

(Begging the question: When's the last time a college baseball team scored 16 times and still got run-ruled?)

"Not the prettiest game by any means," Byers shrugged. "But that's just Miami Baseball. We'll find a way to get it done. We're willing to do whatever it's going to take."

"That game was insane," added Baker, who turned in a 3-for-4 showing at the plate and scored three of Miami's 26 runs. "The wind was blowing out pretty hard, so we had an idea it was going to be a high-scoring game…we knew we were going to have to score to win.

"A lot of those runs came with two outs, and it wasn't one big hit. It was a bunch of singles, a double, a walk, and good at-bats…

"You like to credit those moments to those 6 a.m. wakeups [for early-season practices]. When you get up big and you think somebody's going to roll over and they don't, knowing that it's going to be one of those days. You're going to have to fight it out, and the tougher team's going to come out."

"It was an emotional game; that's an understatement," said Smiley. "One minute you're high, the next minute you're low…

"We knew it was going to be a long day. We knew that we were going to throw punches and get punches thrown at us. Lucky for us, we were able to throw the knockout punch."

That would be the final RedHawk home run of the afternoon, a three-run line-drive blast to right by Evan Appelwick --his third of the weekend-- that pushed the lead back to double digits in the eighth inning for some valuable insurance runs and basically sealed Miami's 10th straight conference series victory.

After a tension-filled rollercoaster weekend, the Red and White finally had some breathing room. Evan Appelwick

"We just wanted it really bad [for the players], because they deserve it," Smiley said after his team finished off its 40th MAC win in the past two seasons and captured a hard-earned title. "They deserve every bit of success and recognition. They deserve to be conference champions…

"This group in particular: It's the same guys that have been here… It wasn't a question of the amount of talent that we had – just whether or not we could get them believing they could win a championship in a short time frame…

"They have never complained, and they have let us coach them hard, which good teams do. They're able to handle the truth, and they seek the truth. They don't always love our feedback when they struggle, but they appreciate it.

"They can handle honesty. And that's our job as coaches: To be transparent with them, to let them know where they stand, and then go to work with them together, fixing what needs to be fixed."

During Byers' and Baker's three seasons in Oxford, the RedHawks (32-21, 23-7 MAC) have climbed in the league standings each year, from seventh place to fourth place to first place. "The turnaround in the last two years has been something I'm very proud to be a part of," Baker said.

And as the team has improved collectively, the players have done so individually, as evidenced in Byers' ERA moving from 7.63 (in 2023) to 3.97 (last season) to a league-leading 2.81 this spring.

"Before the last out, when I got to two strikes I looked in the dugout and saw 39 guys that were at the top of the step ready to jump over the railing. That just motivated me even more to get the final out," Byers said. "Knowing that all those guys were behind me —that were going to make plays for me as they have all year and my whole career here at Miami— made it even more special.

"It just means even more coming kind of from the bottom, where we started my freshman year, and being where we're at now," he continued. "It means everything to be able to do it with the same group of guys that was here my freshman year, as well as the guys that we brought in. All the work that we've put in together and just letting it shine when we go out on the field has been super special.

Ball State Baseball vs Miami on May 17, 2025. Photo by Samantha Blankenship/Ball State University.

"We're looking forward to keeping it rolling."

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Miami now turns its attention to the MAC Tournament, which gets underway today at Crushers Stadium in Avon, Ohio. The top-seeded RedHawks will enjoy an early bye before taking the field Friday morning against the lowest-seeded team to advance in the double-elimination bracket.

"Getting that [high] seed is crucial coming into the tournament," said Baker. "Being in the position where we can run the table in three games is pretty exciting…

"We've got a lot of experience. A lot of these guys were here last year, and I think that's going to help us a lot, knowing it's not just going to be an easy sail to win the tournament.

"We're going to have to play some really good games against some good teams to win."

Byers said the RedHawks' approach is to keep doing exactly what's gotten them to this point. "The vibes [last Saturday] were definitely 'championship-game.' That really prepared us for the tournament, coming into where we're expecting to be in the championship game of the tournament as well," he explained. "Being able to stick to our process and see it work week after week just shows that it's super-sustainable. That's what we're going to continue to do in the tournament.

"Our mentality as a team's not really going to change much…Last year, we were excited just to make the tournament. But going in as the No. 1 seed, we have high expectations…and we're looking to fulfill those expectations."

According to Smiley, winning the first two contests in Avon will be critical for Miami's hopes of lifting another trophy this weekend and punching a ticket to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2005. "Do whatever you've got to do to win the first two, because somebody's got to beat you twice if you do that [in the final], which is hard to do," he said. Ball State Baseball vs Miami on May 17, 2025. Photo by Samantha Blankenship/Ball State University.

"They're all good teams. We've got to go now from the high of winning a championship and doing something that hasn't been done here in a long time to, 'All right, let's refocus. We've got a tournament to win.'

"Because our goal isn't to just win the regular season. It's to get into the NCAA postseason and get to a regional."

Sounds like another dogpile 20 years in the making.

Find more Front Row Features at: MiamiRedHawks.com/FrontRowFeatures

Miami Baseball will look to win the MAC Tournament for the first time since 2005 this week in Avon, Ohio. Bookmark MiamiRedHawks.com and MAC Championship Central for the latest video, ticket, and statistic information.

Players Mentioned

Evan Appelwick

Dillon Baker

Carson Byers

David Novak

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