NCAA baseball team stopped caring about winning to focus on Jesus – then went to the World Series

Messiah baseball head coach Phillip Shallenberger and players Daniel Knight and Drew Hurst opened up to Fox News Digital about a season of devotion to Jesus.

College baseball nearly saw a miracle at Messiah University this year. 

The Messiah Falcons made a run all the way to the Division III World Series championship game on June 5 in one of the most historic seasons in program history. 

But for coach Phillip Shallenberger and his team, the goal wasn't even to get there. Their goal was simply to be good Christians. 

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Head Coach Phill Shallenberger of the Messiah Falcons addresses the team in the dugout before the Division III Men’s Baseball Championship against the Wisconsin-Whitewater Warhawks held at Classic Park on June 3, 2025, in Eastlake, Ohio. (Isaiah Vazquez/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)

"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. 

About halfway through this season, after a 1-6 start, the team underwent a priority shift. No longer did they show up to the clubhouse every day with a main goal to win. Now, they were 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."

Shallenberger even made his