NBC World Series: Liberal is the final undefeated team

The two unbeaten teams looked thoroughly beaten. Neither could pitch, hit or field. That left hitting as the winner by default.

Liberal survived a sloppy mess to defeat Haysville 11-10 in the winners bracket final of the National Baseball Congress World Series at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium.

Both teams will play tonight in the six-team quarterfinals. Everybody needs to sleep late and regroup. Haysville committed three errors; Liberal five. Three Haysville pitchers allowed 13 hits. Liberal used five pitchers, who 11 hits and walked four. Of the game's 21 runs, 13 were earned.

"I'm still rattled," Haysville catcher Ben Harty said. "We just need to put this one behind us."

Both teams feel that way. Liberal built leads of 4-0 and 7-5 and needed to score four runs in the sixth to pull ahead for good. Haysville rallied to lead 9-7 in the top of the sixth before handing the momentum back to the Bee Jays. Liberal grabbed the lead with four runs in the sixth, going ahead 10-9 on a two-run triple by Marc Gomez.

Nothing seemed settled until Liberal reliever Brandon Faulkner took over. He restored order with 2 1/3 scoreless, hitless innings to finish off the Heat. He worked around an error with two outs in the ninth to get a groundball that mercifully ended a long night for both teams.

"You're always going to have adversity and errors on defense," he said. "Down in the bullpen, I was just trying to prepare myself. I saw we were making a lot of errors. You just come out trying to throw strikes and help the team as much as possible."

Liberal left fielder Nick Cocking started the ninth inning with a sliding catch of a sinking liner off the bat of K.C. Pfister. If it gets by him, it rolls a long way and the tying run is in scoring position _ or worse.

Even on a night marked by porous defense, Cocking didn't hesitate.

"I knew I could get there," he said. "I knew that one was in my range, so I laid out for it."

Faulkner, Cocking's teammate at Kansas State, said it was a play Cocking makes routinely.

"It didn't surprise me he made that play," Faulkner said.

Most of the game was full of surprises as both teams muddled through a series of mistakes.

* Liberal took a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first, an inning started with a fielding error on Haysville first baseman Clint McKeever.

* In third, Haysville scored two runs on a throwing error by Liberal third baseman Richard Bohlken. In the fourth, Bohlken fumbled a groundball with the bases loaded, allowing a run to score.

* Haysville's Ben Kline reached on an error by shortstop Kelby Tomlinson with two outs in the fifth inning. He moved to third on another error by Tomlinson and scored when reliever Tyler Sturges walked Nate Shaver with the bases loaded.

* Haysville took an 8-7 lead in the sixth on Kline's two-run single after a walk loaded the bases. Reliever Travis Parker hit the next batter and groundout scored a run to give the Heat a 9-7 lead.

* Liberal cut the lead to 9-8 in the bottom of the inning. Then Gomez smacked a ball that bounced in front of Shaver in right and bounced over his head, rolling to the wall. Two runs scored to give the BeeJays a 10-9 lead and a sacrifice fly made it 11-9.