The final day of the regular season made it look as though Arkansas State backed its way into the Sun Belt Conference baseball tournament, but Tommy Raffo disputes that.
ASU's coach said his team gained steam over the final four weeks of the season and earned its way into the field.
At a glance
WHEN Today-Sunday
WHERE Riddle-Pace Field, Troy, Ala.
RADIO KNEA-AM, 970, in Jonesboro; KNEA-FM, 95.3, in Jonesboro
INTERNET Live video at sunbeltsports. com
FORMAT Two double-elimination brackets consisting of four teams, with the winner of each bracket meeting in the championship game at 1 p.m. Sunday
TODAY’S SCHEDULE
(4) Georgia Southern vs. (5) Georgia State, 9 a.m.
(1) South Alabama vs. (8) Arkansas State, 12:30 p.m.
(3) Louisiana-Lafayette vs. (6) Texas State, 4 p.m.
(2) Troy vs. (7) Texas-Arlington, 7:30 p.m.
ASU (12-17) will make its sixth consecutive appearance in the conference tournament at 12:30 p.m. today when the eighth-seeded Red Wolves play No. 1 seed South Alabama (35-19) in Troy, Ala.
It's a tough test, but it's a better position than where ASU found itself for much of the regular season, which was near the bottom of the Sun Belt standings and outside of tournament contention. But ASU won its last three conference series, going 7-2 over its last nine conference games to slide into the tournament as the No. 8 seed.
Even as ASU was waiting out a weather-delayed finale between Louisiana-Monroe and Louisiana-Lafayette on Saturday -- a game it needed Louisiana-Lafayette to win to qualify for the tournament -- Raffo said he felt his team was deserving of inclusion.
"We played our way in," Raffo said. "During the course of the last three, four, five weeks, these guys had fought so hard just to put themselves even in the conversation. To play for a championship, I think that's a positive for the program."
As late as April 25, ASU's tournament prospects looked bleak. Weather had affected almost every weekend series, the Red Wolves had yet to win a conference series and were 5-15 in league games and in 10th place, four games out of tournament contention.
But that happened to be the weekend Raffo moved junior starter David Owen to the top of the rotation -- his spot had been adjusted because of weather all season -- and things have slowly fallen into place since.
Owen delivered a complete-game victory in the first game of the series against Appalachian State, ASU won the final game, and Red Wolves have been gaining momentum ever since.
Then came an 8-6 nonconference victory in 13 innings May 5 at Central Arkansas, which sparked a 6-2 run to finish the season.
"I think it was part of it, but I don't think it was all of it," Raffo said of the victory at UCA. "I think it was a gradual build-up."
ASU then swept Texas State and won 2 of 3 against UALR, and Louisiana-Lafayette's sweep of Louisiana-Monroe allowed ASU to maintain its half-game edge.
Owen, 3-4 with a 2.96 ERA, will start today against South Alabama, which Raffo said is the most well-rounded team in the tournament.
The Jaguars have the Sun Belt's highest batting average (.285), lowest ERA (3.22) and have committed the fewest errors (48).
"Just a complete team," Raffo said. "They're not going to be very flashy, but they just do everything very, very well."
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Sports on 05/20/2015