The Southern baseball season ended with a quick exit from the Southwestern Athletic Conference tournament in a pair of games that summed up the season: good but not good enough.
The Jaguars (22-29) suffered a pair of three-run losses to Florida A&M and Alabama State in which they were competitive but fell short.
“It was kind of the story of the season,” said Southern coach Chris Crenshaw, who completed his fourth season. “We got some timely hits early in the season but late in the season we couldn’t find them. I thought we were one of the top teams in the conference. It’s a tough pill to swallow when you know you’ve got the players to win a championship and you don’t come through.
The loss to FAMU was a good example. After Southern rallied from behind twice to tie the game in the late innings, the Rattlers scored three in the bottom of the eighth. Southern then loaded the bases with no outs in the top of the ninth, but the next three hitters — Kameron Byrd, Ryan Ollison and Dylan Jones — each struck out swinging to end the 8-5 loss.
Southern outhit Alabama State in the second game but lost 11-8 after leaving nine runners on base.
The up-and-down performance also was prevalent during the season with sweeps of SWAC tournament champion Grambling and Prairie View, but losing all five games against Texas Southern.
“We had a chance to win both games,” Crenshaw said. “The first game we had bases loaded and no outs, came away with nothing and the game ended. We played hard, we pitched decently and had a chance to win the game late. We just didn’t come through offensively.
“The second game we played good defense, outhit them but didn’t get a hit when it mattered.”
The good news moving forward is Crenshaw loses only three starters from the everyday lineup and should have depth. The bad news is eight of the 13 seniors leaving are pitchers, including starter Drew Lasseigne and key relievers Christian Davis and Jerry Burkett.
Crenshaw is also due for better luck. He lost an assistant coach just before the season started and was unable to replace him. That’s one of the first orders of business for him in the offseason, in addition to finding some pitchers. The Jaguars also struggled with injuries in the early going to four starters who missed more than 10 games each.
“We have a lot of guys with a lot of at-bats coming back, but we’ve got to find some pitchers,” Crenshaw said. “Drew, Christian Davis, Jerry Burkett are gone. We will have to bring some guys in and maybe some ... guys in the portal.
“We have nine guys committed, three pitchers I’m excited about and a pretty good high school catcher. I need to find some experienced pitchers and an assistant coach.”