I realize it's NAIA, but it's still baseball and it's a great story...
Winning the Avista-NAIA World Series 9-3 over Lubbock Christian (TX), the 2011 Concordia (Ca) Eagles may very well have been the most underrated and unlikely candidates to ever play for the national crown in the tournament's 55-year history. Concordia entered the Avista-NAIA World Series as the only team to have been left out of the NAIA Coaches Top 25 Poll throughout the eight votings that spanned November 2010(ranked #39) to May 2011 (ranked #27) and it would have been hard to blame any of the nation's coaches for those missing votes.
Going into the season they held a #39 ranking and the toughest strength of schedule ranking in the country. By Mid April After a Loss to CSUSM, the Eagles held a modest 18-16 record, including 9-14 in GSAC play, and a 7 game losing streak...the eagles had just 15 regular season games left to turn the season around and even qualify for the GSAC Postseason Tournament. And that they did in an historic way. First they rattled off a school-record 12 wins in a row in the month of April to nmake the GSAC Tournament as a #4 seed. At that point the Eagles were still out of a regional invite unless they could win the season ending GSAC conference tourney. That they did as well managing to win the season ending tourney over a highly ranked (#3) and highly skilled Cal Baptist team, and grab a regional invite as the #3/5 seeds. They repeated the feat again in the regional and earned a World Series Berth. Still huge underdogs they were seeded #9/10 in the NAIA World series, lost their second game and still managed to win out take the first title in progam and GSAC History. In the process Concordia won 25 out of it's last 28 games.
http://www.cuieagles.com/article/1392.php
http://www.cuieagles.com/article/1391.php
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