It’s May 6th, 2012. Chris Cruz is facing a 0-0 count against Dartmouth in the bottom of the 11th inning. There’s one out, and his teammate, Brian Billigen, is on first base. Cornell is down one run.
Let’s talk about what’s at stake here. This is the third and final game of the Ivy League championship. The winner of this three game series will advance to the NCAA championship, where they’ll have a chance to compete among the nation’s best teams. The loser will get sent home with nothing.
He’s in front of 422 fans, the most that have ever been seated at Hoy Field since 2012, breaking the 312-person record set the previous day.
Back to Cruz.
The first pitch is a ball. 1-0.
There’s an unbelievable amount of pressure on him right now. More eyes are watching than ever before. He’s down a run in extras, meaning that if the team fails to score a run in this inning, they lose the game. The one out may seem like a saving grace, but the runner on first means that a double play could not only end the game, but also the season right there.
In hindsight, the history of these two teams makes this situation all the more interesting. Cruz is going up against Dartmouth, who’ve been in the Ivy League Championship Series in each of the last four years leading up to this moment, winning two of them. And while he doesn’t know it, Dartmouth would appear in the next three as well.
Cruz also doesn’t know that Cornell baseball would peak right here, not appearing in another Championship Series and having a continually worse record year after year. Not capitalizing on this moment would be gut-wrenching.
This is the embodiment of do-or-die, his best chance to win a title with Cornell and cement his name in baseball history.