Southern’s baseball team played the first of five consecutive games in Houston on Wednesday, and it’s one the Jaguars are hoping to forget quickly.
They suffered their worst loss of the season, 25-0, at University of Houston — but the next four against Texas Southern are far more important. Southern and TSU are tied for the Southwestern Athletic Conference West Division lead as the second round of conference play begins.
“We’ve got to flush last night and get ready,” Southern coach Chris Crenshaw said. “We’re playing for first place. The kids know what we’re playing for. We should be ready to go this weekend.”
Southern (17-16, 10-3) and TSU (14-18, 10-3) played only one of their scheduled three-game series in Baton Rouge last month because of bad weather. One of the games will be made up this weekend in a Saturday doubleheader. The series starts at 3 p.m. Friday, followed by a doubleheader at 2 p.m. Saturday and the weekend finale at 1 p.m. Sunday.
Southern had just five hits in Wednesday's loss against Houston while committing four errors. The Cougars pounded six Southern pitchers for 20, and the game ended after seven innings via mercy rule. Jalon Mack had two of the Jaguars’ hits.
“Whatever their game plan was, it worked,” Crenshaw said of the Cougars. “They stayed on pitches, drove balls in the gap, took their walks — kind of what we’ve been doing. When we got pitches to hit, we hit them good, and when we had chance to take our bases, we took walks.”
Southern had won four straight games, with a three-game sweep at Grambling and a 12-1 decision over Dillard at home Tuesday.
In the Jaguars’ first meeting with TSU, the Friday game was suspended because of rain and finished in New Orleans, but weather prevented any other games from getting underway.
The Jaguars trailed 4-0 when the game was suspended but rallied to tie the score in New Orleans on a two-run triple by Dylan Jones and a run-scoring single by Darren Johnson.
TSU took back the lead with four runs in the eighth, three on a home run by Jaden Jones. Southern battled back with a run in the eighth and solo homers by Khyle Radcliffe and Ryan Ollison in the ninth, but the Jaguars fell one run short.
Ranard Grace pitched effectively for Southern in that game allowing four runs on eight hits in five innings while striking out a career high 10 batters.
Grace will get the start Friday and Drew Lasseigne the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader, but Crenshaw said he isn’t sure about the rest of the weekend. Joseph Semien will likely get one of the starts.
Tyeler Hawkins continues to lead Southern with a .407 batting average and seven homers with 32 RBIs. Radcliffe is hitting .377 with four homers and 35 RBIs, while shortstop KJ White is batting .367.
“I’ve got to figure out that second game Saturday, and Sunday, whoever doesn’t start will go. I got to pitch some guys (against Houston) who haven’t pitched in a while. I wanted to get two more in last night, but it was a different animal.”
Jones leads the Tigers with a .360 batting average and has four homers and 26 RBIs. All-SWAC shortstop CJ Castillo is batting .341 with two homers and 26 RBIs, while outfielder Nin Burns has five homers and 29 RBIs, both team bests.
Domenic Martinez (3-3, 4.84 ERA) is the Tigers’ probable Friday starter. Martinez started the game in Baton Rouge and allowed one earned run and one hit with four strikeouts in five innings.
Dalton Alford (2-5, 5.44) and Josiah Castro are other possible starters.