I admit it’s my first Alpine Bank Junior College World Series, but I can’t imagine there ever being a more deserving champion than Chipola (Fla.) College.
The Indians overcame every obstacle put in front of them.
The 18-day layoff between the Florida state championship game and JUCO’s first round?
No problem.
Chipola slugged past Iowa Western Community College 11-5 in its World Series debut.
The mighty San Jacinto (Texas) College-North lineup that hit .324 as a team in the series, with its five national titles and 14 major league draftees?
The Indians edged the Gators 7-6.
What about 2005 champion New Mexico Junior College, the nation’s top-ranked team with the top hitting attack (.429 team average) during the regular season?
Chipola No. 2 starter Ryan Chaffee limited the Thunderbirds to five hits in a 7-3 victory in the national final.
One of the last hurdles could have been avoided, though.
With a bracket reworked for CSTV’s coverage of the national championship game, Chipola’s reward for being the only undefeated team in the winner’s draw was having to play three games in 24 hours to win the title against New Mexico, which had a day off despite being in the loser’s draw.
“I didn’t like the bracket,” Chipola coach Jeff Johnson said.
“I thought it gave some unfair advantages. I wish they would look at that a little bit.”
I know Chipola put itself in that situation by losing to Spartanburg (S.C.) Methodist College on Friday night.
But even had the Indians won, they would have had a 14-hour turnaround to play a well-rested bunch of Thunderbirds at 2 p.m. on Saturday.
Why reward New Mexico when the Thunderbirds lost so early in the tournament?
Give the Thunderbirds credit for battling back with two victories in the loser’s bracket, but not that much.
Why should a team that hasn’t lost (Chipola) have to beat a team that has (Spartanburg) to reach the title game when New Mexico gets to watch?
If the bracket stays the same, it would seem more equitable for the two loser’s draw teams to play each other with the undefeated team getting the day of rest.
Johnson pitched another idea that could be worth considering with the oddities provided in drawing up a bracket for a 10-team field.
“Maybe they could do pool play and then have a one-game national championship coming out of the pool play for the TV part of it,” Johnson said.
“We did that in our state and it was pretty good.”
This year’s field could have been divided into two pools — East and West.
The teams in each pool would play each other once to determine its representative to the national final.
If that seems inequitable, the NJCAA could seed the tournament and split them into groups that would be more competitive.
Pool play would add only two more games to the total already played (19).
It would also give all of the national qualifiers the luxury of a four-game guarantee rather than have some come just for two games as it is now.
With the additional games, fans from the districts that are commonly eliminated early in the tournament each year could get to enjoy more of the week’s festivities and spend more money in Grand Junction.
Though they didn’t think the playing field was completely fair, the Indians maintained the class they exhibited as champions throughout the eight days in the Grand Valley by being gracious to their hosts after winning the crown.
“We’ll come play with any bracket y’all make up here,” Johnson said.
“I can’t say enough about the people of Grand Junction. Everybody told me what a great experience it would be.
“The people here did their best to let everybody know what kind of special game we’ve got going here.”
Johnson’s team did its best to put on a special show for the record crowd of 127,688 that attended this year’s 50th anniversary World Series.
Thanks for the memories, Coach.
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Joe Spencer can be reached via e-mail at jspencer@gjds.com.
