With heavy heart, Bagoly comes up big

By ELTON ALEXANDER

Cleveland Plain Dealer

omaha, neb.

Jason Bagoly stood outside the Kent State locker room, with his huge duffel bag and a heavy heart.

There he was Monday evening, patiently answering media questions about perhaps the biggest game of his young life while clearly more anxious to get back to the hotel. The Fitch High graduate was getting ready for a flight that would get him home to Austintown to bury his mother.

Cheryl McHenry died unexpectedly last Thursday.

“It was sudden. We don’t know exactly what,” said Bagoly, a hard-hitting backup first baseman/catcher with the Golden Flashes.

While funeral arrangements were being finalized, Bagoly decided to stay in Omaha with his “second family” — his coaches and teammates. They are wearing a “CM” sticker on their caps in honor of his mother.

So he was on hand for Kent State’s opening game in the College World Series against Arkansas, which the Flashes lost, 8-1. The 6-3, 235-pound junior was still with the team for Monday night’s elimination game, where he became the unexpected catalyst for a gut-twisting 5-4 victory over the No. 1 team in the nation, Florida.

Bagoly’s decision to stay with the team made his solo flight home Tuesday morning from Omaha so much easier to bear. It justified the decision coach Scott Stricklin made to play him for the first time in eight postseason games.

“I wanted to be here with the people who make me happy, playing the sport that makes me happy,” Bagoly said after going 2-for-3 with a single his first at-bat, a wall-banging double to left center, and a very satisfying sacrifice bunt that had his coach, Scott Stricklin, choked up afterward trying to describe it.

It left Bagoly at peace, believing his decision met with his late mother’s approval.

“This has been a difficult few days for our program,” Stricklin said. Then, after taking a few moments to compose himself, “I can’t even imagine what it has been like for Jason.”

Part of Stricklin’s emotion was because he failed to get Bagoly into the loss to Arkansas, which would have been his first postseason action. Bagoly was in the on-deck circle when a double-play ball ended the game.

“I really wrestled with myself that I didn’t get him in,” Stricklin said.

With regular designated hitter Nick Hamilton struggling, Stricklin decided to go with Bagoly against the Gators. But not without some trepidation.

“You think about the ramifications if he has a bad game,” Stricklin said. “He gets out there and plays and things go wrong.”

But he made the call, and told Bagoly privately before he posted the lineup card.

“He gave me a hug, then went out and played the best game of his career,” Stricklin said.

From the outset, nothing went wrong.

“I was pretty locked into the game,” Bagoly said. “But when I got nervous I found myself saying, ‘Come on Mom, I need some strength.’ It helped me. It really did. I found some extra confidence, just because I knew she was here.”

Two-time defending CWS champion South Carolina, a 2-1 loser to Arkansas, awaits Kent today at TD Ameritrade Park in another elimination game.

“Hopefully we get another ‘W’ on Wednesday,” Bagoly said. “We get another ‘W,’ I’m coming back. Hopefully, that’s a little extra motivation for the team.”