Except this wasn’t a novel or a movie, it was real life for the Birmingham Southern baseball team in the spring of 2024, and MBCA alum Josh Leerssen ('20) was right in the midst of it all.

Let’s back up for a minute and talk about how we got to the 2024 season. Leerssen lost most of his senior season to Covid, but Birmingham Southern saw enough of him pitching in a summer league to give him a spot on their roster for the 2021 season. BSC was no underdog story on the diamond, as they had reached the College World Series in 2019. 

In 2021, the Panthers finished 28-16 and won the Southern Athletic Association tournament before being eliminated late in the NCAA Regionals. 2022 was even better as they went 41-10, won the SAA, and won the NCAA Regional, but lost to Trinity University in the NCAA Super Regionals. In 2023, BSC ended their season in the NCAA Regionals after finishing 39-11 overall and capturing another SAA championship.

On the mound, Leerssen threw 21 innings as a freshman, but started to see his time increase as a sophomore, finishing with a 4-1 record and 69 strikeouts in 53 innings. Things really started coming together for Leerssen as a junior, when he was named first team All-Conference after going 8-2 with a 2.38 ERA and 87 strikeouts over 75 innings pitched, while hitters managed only a .217 batting average.

In the 2024 season, Leerssen was again named first team All-Conference, finishing with a 10-2 overall record, including a complete game, three-hit shutout against Berry College.

That brings us back to the 2024 season and the school closure. Leerssen does make one thing very clear about his team and their season. “The whole underdog story is kind of ridiculous. We had a very experienced team. While it may have been our least talented in my four years, that closeness helped get us over the hump.”

The closeness that Leerssen speaks about was forged (at least in part) on March 26, 2024, when the school announced it was closing its doors at the end of May due to finances.

“We’d been hearing about it since like junior year,” Leerssen said on the possibility of the school closing. He said students and the community had been aware of the school seeking financial help from the state, and there had been town hall meetings to keep everyone updated.

As the announcement was being made to the school, Head Coach Jan Weisberg had pulled the team into a meeting. “He was told beforehand, so he had us in a team meeting and told us himself. The initial reaction was shock, but we had a feeling it was coming,” Leerssen said.  

The Panthers got off to a strong start to the season, going 8-2 in their first ten games. But the middle of the season was a grind for the team, as they went 6-9 over their next 15 games. Shortly after the announcement, the squad caught fire, finishing their regular season 13-1.

“We were playing pretty poorly in the time period leading up to the announcement. We just weren’t playing complete games. [Knowing what was going to happen] allowed us to play with a sense of freedom we didn’t know we had. We started playing with house money.” Leerssen said. “Baseball was all we had left. We got to play free and appreciated every day we had together.”

The hot streak stalled out in the conference tournament, as BSC was swept by Rhodes College. However, the Panthers received an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament thanks to a strong early season schedule and their reputation as a program.

They tore through the Regional, beating No. 2 seed Transylvania 21-7, No. 1 seed Spalding 4-2, then another win over Transylvania 5-2. 

In the Super Regional, the team easily defeated Denison 10-1 in the first game of the three game series. Prior to game two, Birmingham Southern was hit with a team wide bout of Norovirus after food poisoning. With players getting IV treatments in the dugout, the team held on for a 7-6 win to punch their ticket to the College World Series.

Had they lost game two, the season may have again ended at the Super Regionals, as Leerssen admitted he and his teammates had nothing left to give and stood no shot of winning a game three.

Seeded No. 7 in the eight team field the Panthers opened the CWS with a 7-5 loss to No. 2 Salve Regina University, on May 31st, 2024 - the last day of official operations for the college.

The tournament was double-elimination, so the very next day, wearing the name of a school on their jerseys that no longer existed, Leerssen toed the pitching rubber with his teammates behind him to take on No. 6 seeded Randolph Macon College. Josh pitched 6.2 innings that day, allowing four runs and six hits, while striking out three. 

With the score tied in the eighth inning, Randolph Macon scored three runs in the top half to take the late lead. Facing elimination, and their time as Birmingham Southern players running out, the Panthers rallied for three runs in the bottom of the inning to tie the score. 

With the score still tied and a runner on first in the bottom of the ninth, Jackson Webster hammered a 0-2 pitch out of the park, to give Birmingham Southern a 9-7 walk-off win.

“That was probably one of the cooler moments that I’ve been part of on a baseball field,” said Leerssen.

The following day in the second consecutive elimination game, BSC faced No. 3 Wisconsin Whitewater. The Panther bats were hot early, taking a 10-5 lead into the bottom of the 7th inning. But this time it was Wisconsin-Whitewater with the dramatic comeback, plating two runs in the seventh, and three more in the eighth to tie the score. A leadoff solo home run gave Wisconsin-Whitewater the win, and officially ended Birmingham Southern baseball.

All that was left was a long bus ride back to Birmingham from Ohio. 

“It was one last chance to hang out and spend time with the fellas,” Leerssen stated. ”I still talk to a lot of them. There are still a handful of dudes that I talk to on a regular basis. I think it would still be like that without this experience, but yes, this experience did bond us as a team.”

According to Leerssen, it wasn’t just the team that bonded over their CWS run, but the city of Birmingham rallied around them as well. “We had such great support from fans, alumni, parents, students...really the whole city of Birmingham embraced us.” 

While things may have ended for BSC, baseball was not over for Leerssen. With one season of eligibility remaining, Leerssen had already committed to Division I Samford University prior to the 2024 season.

He earned the Sunday starting pitcher role for the 2025 season with Samford, but struggled in his first four starts and was moved to a relief role. 

“I could have gone all ‘woe is me’, or I could have embraced my role in the bullpen. I chose to embrace it, and I found a lot of success in the pen. It was a mind shift, but I experienced success at the DI level,” Leerssen commented.

He found so much success that he was named second team All-Conference as a relief pitcher.

Now armed with a degree in finance and an MBA, Leerssen still isn’t quite done with the game of baseball. Josh spent last summer fully immersed in the game, pitching in the MLB Draft League for the Williamsport (PA) Crosscutters.

“I didn’t think I was done playing. I hadn’t ever given my full 100% effort to the game,” he said.

This spring he will be back on the mound for the Milwaukee Milkmen of the American Association, which is a Major League Baseball partner league. Until he reports to spring training next month Leerssen’s life has pretty much been devoted to giving 100% of his time and effort to the game of baseball. 

“I’ll use my degree at some point,” he said. But for Leerssen, that point just isn’t quite here yet.