DURHAM, N.C. (May 24, 2010) – The phone calls started at the crack of dawn. Eventually the news made its way through the entire Kutztown University baseball team before 9 a.m. Monday morning. By the time members stumbled down to breakfast still exhausted from winning a bizarre 2-1 game in 12 innings over Franklin Pierce in a contest that took 9 hours, 11 minutes to finish, the Golden Bears were national news. (LINKS TO SOME OF THE NATIONAL STORIES)

The game and Brett Widger's name received mentioned during the 90-minute edition of ESPN's SportsCenter. Stories about the strange contest appeared on SportingNews.com, msnbc.com, espn.com and places in between including the latimes.com. A day after, the game that featured over five hours' worth of delays, it still seemed surreal to the Golden Bears. Widger ended the marathon by blooping a single over the drawn-in infield to score Mike Kacelowicz (Orwigsburg, PA/Blue Mountain) with the winning run at 10:14 p.m.

“It's pretty cool to be mentioned on SportsCenter,” Widger said. “I was just glad that I was in a position to help the team. All I tried to do in that situation was make contact.”

There was a lightning delay, a massive rain stoppage and a power outage during a long and strange afternoon that turned into late evening at the USA Baseball National Training Complex. As the players were eating an assortment of English muffins, bagels with cream cheese, drinking apple juice and eating cereal, fans were stopping over and congratulating the Golden Bears on winning the game. One fan from the University of Tampa even remarked that she was following the game online while she was shopping in Wal-Mart.

Kutztown head baseball coach Chris Blum's cell-phone lit up like a Christmas tree with text messages from former players, friends and co-workers.

While there are no official NCAA records immediately available for the longest game that included stoppages, the Kutztown-FPU game was definitely longer time-wise than the 25-inning marathon between Texas and Boston College that took seven hours, three minutes to complete in 2008. The Texas-Boston College game is officially recognized as the longest baseball game in NCAA history.

The game itself between FPU and Kutztown took a mere 3 hours, 33 minutes to complete. However, the delays totaled 5:38. This game was reminiscent of the first game of the doubleheader between the San Diego Padres and Philadelphia Phillies in 1993 when it was scheduled to start at 5:35 p.m. and ended at 1:04 a.m. That contest featured 5 hours, 14 minutes of rain delays. In between all of the delays, the game moved along at a quick 2 hour, 33 minute clip.

“Man, that game was unbelievable,” Kutztown senior pitcher Mike Bucklin (Shillington, PA/Governor Mifflin) said. “I still can't believe all of the delays we endured during the game.”

So now, the Golden Bears are the toast of the nation after earning their first victory in this round of the NCAA Division II Baseball National Championship since an 11-7 victory over Florida Southern in 2002. Kutztown now will have to put this game behind it as it prepares to meet Southern Indiana Tuesday evening at 7 p.m. Southern Indiana beat Minnesota State, 8-6, in a game that ended at 2:30 a.m.

A Golden Bear victory would advance them to Thursday's semifinals, a place Kutztown has never visited. No matter what happens the remainder of the week, Kutztown baseball has found its place in the national limelight.    

--KU--