Messiah University Baseball Team Found Purpose Beyond the Scoreboard
Coach Phillip Shallenberger of the Messiah Falcons recently shared the team's spiritual growth and how they had a historic run to the Division III World Series championship game on June 5.
"It stopped becoming about, like, 'OK, can we win a national championship,' and it started becoming, like, 'How can we point people closer to Christ?'" Messiah pitcher Daniel Knight told Fox News Digital.
Following a 1-6 start, the Falcons shifted their goal from winning to simply serving Christ.
"We used to sit in the video room, and we would show the other pitcher and show what the other team does and really focus on what they were doing," Shallenberger said. "And then, at about that point, we started shifting toward just diving into the Word a little bit more. Like, 'How does God want us to lead?'
"It was a bit more on the devotionals and bit less on the scouts. And that was actually about the time we started to play a lot better."
As part of a team workout, Shallenberger made his players carry 250-pound crosses.
"We do that right in the middle of our conference season in between games," Shallenberger said.
The shift to glorifying God improved performance among the players.
Knight, who began a poor start to the season with a 9.26 ERA, said that he threw eight and a third shutout innings with nine strikeouts in a game on April 17 against Eastern in which he did the cross-carrying exercise before the game.
"It was kind of a wake-up call for me is that you know what the most important thing we can do is glorify God and always having that at our forefront if that means sacrificing being at our best physically and the more reason to rely on the Lord and his strength those are the choices that started to be made after that point," Knight said.
He also noted how he was reading Scripture one morning and heard God tell him, "It's not about you."
"When I was focused on myself, I was becoming depressed. And then when I had that shift of God telling me, 'It's not about you,' I saw a change in when I was trying to serve other people, that I was receiving more joy," Knight said.
Shallenberger and his team also added scripture to their play-call wristbands, where they used to place pitches and signs.
"It would say, 'Whatever, bunt defense,' or whatever we wanted. But [Shallenberger] also added some sayings, like one was like,' Surrender your hands' or 'Jesus over everything,'" said infielder Drew Hurst.
"So I know for me, there would be multiple times where either I would make an error or strike out to end an inning and then run on the field and maybe be a little bit p---ed off at myself. But he always would put those on as a little reminder of why [we] play this game, and it's not about our performance or what we do win-wise, but how we, with body language on the field, show love to Jesus and the other team and whoever else is watching us."
Additionally, the apostle Paul became a team favorite after the players studied characters in the Bible.
They dominated the Commonwealth Tournament, NCAA Regionals, Super Regionals, and the first two rounds of the World Series after finishing the regular season 27–13.
However, they lost the championship game after losing to the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater in their last two games.
"The Falcons won the program's first Regional Title at Randolph-Macon, the program's first Super Regional Title at Salisbury, and finished as the 2025 NCAA Division III National Runner-Up! Congratulations on this historic run!" the team posted on Instagram.
Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/Isaiah Vazquez/Contributor
Originally published June 18, 2025.
