UALR, ASU still has plenty riding

Tommy Raffo exited last year's series against UALR with victories in two of three games and a trip to the Sun Belt Conference tournament for his Arkansas State baseball team.

But the ASU coach also left that series in Jonesboro with a distinct feeling about the Trojans' future after they finished that weekend at 16-33 in Coach Chris Curry's debut season.

"Well-coached and versed in the game," Raffo said. "There was no doubt in my mind that it would be coming, it was just a matter of when."

The Trojans have taken their first big step under Curry this season, one that won't end no matter the results of this weekend's regular-season ending series against the Red Wolves that begins at 6 tonight at Gary Hogan Field in Little Rock.

UALR won't catch either South Alabama or Louisiana-Lafayette for the top spot in the Sun Belt Conference standings, but a good weekend along with some help, could make it so that the Trojans enter next week's conference tournament as high as the No. 2 seed. But that doesn't mean this will be a relaxing weekend for the Trojans (25-24, 16-11), who know their season will extend beyond Saturday's regular-season finale to next week's eight-team tournament in San Marcos, Texas.

"There's still meat on the bone," Curry said. "How do you keep going when a goal is maybe accomplished? Well, the reason you keep going is that there's more to do. There's more that we can accomplished."

Among those is trying to ensure an overall winning season, an outside chance of winning 30 games for the first time since 2003 and entering the Sun Belt tournament as a No. 2 seed. To do that, the Trojans would have to make up two games over the final three with Louisiana-Lafayette, which plays Louisiana-Monroe to finish the regular season. But even if UALR holds its spot and enters the tournament as a No. 3 seed, it'll be the best-ever start in the program's 25 seasons in the Sun Belt.

Not bad for a team picked to finish ninth in a preseason poll of league coaches.

"I would say that would be exceeding expectations," Curry said. "And it would make a statement that we are trying to finish, and that we're not just a hot team. We're not a fluke, we're finishing what we started."

To do that, UALR will have to play an ASU team that is still trying solidify its spot in San Marcos. Hampered by pitching inconsistencies all season -- its 4.68 team ERA is seventh in the Sun Belt -- the Red Wolves are in eighth place entering today, one game ahead of Louisiana-Monroe and two games ahead of Georgia State.

ASU beat No. 6 Ole Miss 8-6 in its home finale on Tuesday night, but Raffo doesn't expect that to mean anything regarding what will happen this weekend. The Red Wolves (25-26, 11-16) have been too inconsistent to predict much this season.

"Baseball is a weird game sometimes," Raffo said. "You still have to play it right, you've still got to respect the game and make routine plays and throw strikes and make good contact. So, maybe for a lot of teams, it's just a matter of being more consistent in those areas."

Raffo's biggest concern is a UALR lineup highlighted by Ryan Scott and Dalton Thomas, the only two players on the same team in Division I baseball to have at least 83 hits each. Scott is second in the country with a .433 batting average and leads the Sun Belt with 84 hits, while Thomas is second with a .399 average and 83 hits.

"I think they probably have the two best guys in the league," Raffo said.

Curry, who said the success of each helps the other, hasn't shortchanged how much the two have meant to the team. Their production has led a lineup that is hitting a Sun Belt-best .300 and scored 327 runs, which has it in position for tournament seeding rather than simply a berth.

"We just need to figure out how to win this game," Curry said. "We've been trying to gear everything for the tournament for the last weekend or tow, while making sure we win every game we possibly can."

Sports on 05/19/2016

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