the good stuff

For evidence of why tournament baseball is so compelling, look no further than the SWAC event ongoing in Baton Rouge, La. Jackson State, the best team in the league all season, is finished. So is Southern University, which won the other division and was hosting the eight-team tournament. Mississippi Valley State, a 4-seed that entered the tournament in the throes of a nine-game losing streak, is on a three-game roll and in the championship game, which will be played Sunday on ESPNU. A berth in an NCAA regional will be at stake. Valley (now 17-38) beat Southern twice in the tourney, including a grinding 2-1 victory on Friday at Lee Hines Field. Joseph Germaine knocked in a run in the first inning and Edmund Cheatham scored on a wild pitch in the fifth to put the Delta Devils up 2-0. Trey Lacy and Christopher Broadway made the lead stand up, allowing just three hits against a powerful Jaguars lineup. Lacy went seven innings to notch just his second win of the season. “I’m very emotional right now,” Valley coach Doug Shanks told the Baton Rouge Advocate after the game. We can only imagine. Meanwhile, the emotion is very different for Jackson State. The Tigers won 21 of 24 SWAC games this season to run away with the Eastern Division title. But after winning their tourney opener, the Tigers’ bats went silent in the next two games, producing just one run. Things fell completely apart in Friday’s elimination game, when they committed seven errors and were 10-run ruled (11-1) in seven innings by Texas Southern. It’s highly unlikely JSU (35-16) will receive an at-large bid to the NCAAs. Tigers coach Omar Johnson knew this going in. “You don’t get rewarded for your body of work in our conference,” he said a few weeks ago. “It’s a shame. That one week (of the tournament) means everything.”