Shocker helps Hutchinson Monarchs pull off historic upset to win NBC World Series title

The Hutchinson Monarchs engineered one of the most memorable upsets in the 89-year history of the National Baseball Congress World Series to win the organization’s first national championship.

The Monarchs never trailed in a stunning 6-3 win over the Santa Barbara Foresters in the championship game at Eck Stadium on Saturday night, snapping the Forester’s 20-game winning streak and denying their bid to become the first franchise to win four straight national titles.

Santa Barbara, with 10 NBC championships to its credit since 2006, had not lost in Wichita since the 2019 quarterfinal and outscored opponents 180-34 during its historic winning streak that spanned four summers.

The Monarchs, created in 2009, became the first Kansas franchise to win the NBC World Series in more than a decade, since the Liberal Bee Jays won it all in 2010, and the first Kansas team to beat the powerhouse Foresters since 2015.

Ending the season celebrating with championship belts and trophies was quite the detour from how Hutchinson began the summer. The Monarchs had a 5-10 record at one point near the end of June, a dismal start that included a 22-0 loss to the Kansas Cannons.

Even with a second-half surge, the Monarchs (19-16) barely finished above .500 in the Jayhawk Collegiate League and were fortunate just to receive a bid to the NBC World Series.

Once they arrived in Wichita, the Monarchs were a different team. They cranked out 58 runs in five straight wins, including a 17-0 battering of Five Tool Kraken in Friday’s semifinals, to set up a showdown with the three-time defending champions.

Hutchinson featured mostly Kansas junior college players, while Santa Barbara’s championship lineup featured hitters from Texas, Michigan, Oklahoma, Dallas Baptist, Texas Arlington and Santa Clara. The Monarchs started Cole Toureau, who was 0-6 with a 9.36 ERA at Hutchinson Community College this past season, while the Foresters started Carson Turnquist, a Perfect Game 10 recruit coming out of high school.

But for nine innings on Saturday, program prestige and recruiting rankings didn’t matter.

Hutchinson struck first in the bottom of the fifth inning, as Will Edmunson (Hutchinson Community College) was sitting breaking ball and turned one over to line drive it just over the leaping third baseman’s glove for a 2-RBI hit. In the next inning, a pair of former Shockers, Cooper Harris (Pittsburg State) and Jarrett Flaggert (Cowley College), drove balls over the outfielder’s heads for RBI doubles to open up a 4-0 lead.

Meanwhile, on the mound, Toureau likely delivered the best performance of his career, keeping a lineup full of Division I hitters completely off-balanced throughout the evening. Santa Barbara only managed a pair of singles through six innings before finally touching Toureau in the top of the seventh inning when Max Belyeu, Eamonn Lance and Will Rogers strung together three straight hits to plate a run.

In a bold move by Hutchinson manager Casey Lippoldt, he trusted his starter to escape the jam. Sure enough, Toureau was up for the challenge, coaxing the final two outs of the inning, punctuated by a breaking ball for a called third strike to end the inning.

Toureau’s intensity was on full display in between innings, as he screamed in celebration coming off the mound, then bounced off of players to fire up his team after limiting the Foresters to a single run through seven innings.

The celebration continued in the bottom-half of the inning, as Maize graduate and current Shocker outfielder Jaden Gustafson cranked a first-pitch fastball 400 feet to dead center field for a two-run home run to extend Hutchinson’s lead to 6-1.

Santa Barbara attempted a last-ditch rally in the eighth inning, plating two runs, but Hutchinson reliever Derick Johnson (Fort Hays State) struck out Rogers to end the threat.

Reed Scott, a Hutchinson native, sit down the Foresters in order in the top of the ninth inning to secure the improbable victory.