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The 1982 Baseball Team was the first program in Longwood athletics history to advance to an NCAA Division II Championship event, playing their way to the 1982 Division II College World Series in Riverside, Calif. In just the fifth year of the program's existence, the Lancers, led by head coach Buddy Bolding, finished with a 31-10-1 record after storming through a stacked South Atlantic Regional to earn the World Series berth.
David Mitchell, Bruce Morgan and Denny Ulrey captained the 21-member team, which included the program's first three All-Americans in Dwayne Kingery, John Sullivan, and Doug Toombs. Kingery was named MVP of the South Atlantic Regional, helping the Lancers knock off West Georgia 12-2 in the regional opener and then take a best-of-three series against powerhouse Valdosta State to clinch the regional title. Longwood's old-school approach yielded a .338 team batting average and an average of 9.0 runs per game.
The Lancers fell to eventual World Series Champion UC Riverside 6-1 in the World Series opener before runner-up Florida Southern ended their historic season, 11-0, in the elimination game. That would be the first of two College World Series appearances for the Lancers, who returned to college baseball's biggest stage to win three games during the 1991 World Series.
The team included 21 players: Mike Alves ‘85, Sam Bagley ‘83, Sonny Bolton ‘84, Rusty Bowlin ‘84, David Brown ‘83, Billy Catron ‘82, John Dipierdomenico ‘85, Ron Jones ‘83, Duayne Kendrick ‘84, Tim Kendrick ‘83, Dwayne Kingery ‘83, Allen Lawter ‘85, Donnie Mowbray ‘82, David Mitchell ‘82, Bruce Morgan ‘82, Mickey Roberts ‘83, Dave Rumburg ‘83, John Sullivan ‘84, Doug Toombs ‘83, Denny Ulrey ’82 and Richard Vaught ’83.
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