The Southern baseball team finished its season on a high note with a sweep of Arkansas-Pine Bluff to earn the West Division’s No. 3 seed in the Southwestern Athletic Conference Tournament which begins Wednesday in Atlanta.
The Jaguars will play East 2-seed Bethune Cookman at noon Wednesday in a first-round game at Russ Chandler Stadium. A victory would put the Jaguars (22-26) against the winner of Grambling-Jackson State at 2 p.m. Thursday. If Southern loses, the Jaguars will play the loser of that game at 11 a.m. Thursday.
The other first-round matchups have Texas Southern vs. Florida A&M at 8 a.m.; Alabama State vs. Prairie View at 2 p.m. and Grambling vs. Jackson State at 5 p.m. The winner of the tournament will advance as the SWAC’s automatic bid into the NCAA tournament, which begins June 2.
Southern, which won eight of its last nine games, tied for second with Texas Southern at 17-10 in SWAC play but the Tigers got the No. 2 spot by virtue of the tiebreaker. The teams split their four games and two were cancelled because of rain.
The Jaguars sent the 11 seniors off with a 12-1 victory on Saturday to cap their best offensive series of the season. Southern scored 31 runs and had 33 hits, including 11 for extra bases and three of those home runs. Southern won the first game 7-6 with three runs in the bottom of the ninth inning.
Southern entered their final at bat trailing 6-4, but Jaylen Armstrong and Jah’li Hendricks reached base before O’Neill Burgos and Gustavo Nava Sanchez followed with run-scoring singles to tie the game. Burgos scored the game-winning run when UAPB tried to turn an inning-ending double play but Hunter Tabb beat the relay throw to first base.
Armstrong batted .500, going 6 for 12 with a double, triple and home run, five runs batted in and three stolen bases to finish the regular season with the team’s best batting average at .322. Burgos went 4 for 7 with two doubles and a homer while increasing his team-leading totals to 13 home runs and 57 RBIs.
Hendricks went 5 for 11 and Sanchez 5 for 8 with five RBIs. Tabb and Jonathan Evans each had four hits.
Nick Wilson gave the Jaguars a sixth consecutive quality start in the series opener with eight innings, two earned runs and eight hits with five strikeouts and two walks, although he did not get the decision. Drew Lasseigne got the victory in relief.
Antoine Harris (1-6) got his first win with five innings in the second game, allowing two runs and six hits with four strikeouts and four walks. Ranard Grace got his first save of the season with two innings of scoreless relief. Jalon Long (4-3) went three scoreless innings to get the Game 3 victory with a strikeout and zero walks.
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