LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Last Monday should have been a happy day for
Jackson Wells, but it wasn't. The disappointment was written all over his face. The senior, three-year Little Rock baseball starting pitcher joined several other teammates and track and field athletes for a special baccalaureate ceremony at the Jack Stephens Center.
While the mood was festive with a large audience of supporters in attendance, Wells was disappointed after dropping the final regular-season series to SEMO – 19-0, 10-4 and 14-4 in seven innings. With those losses, Little Rock had dropped 13 of its final 14 regular-season games and finished tied for eighth place in the Ohio Valley Conference with Western Illinois. The Trojans picked up the final OVC Tournament berth by virtue of taking the regular-season series from the Leathernecks.
"Coming off the weekend, it stunk," Wells said. "Nobody played well, and I didn't have a good start. Graduation is awesome, but the last thing you want to do is have a terrible weekend and then go be recognized for being great."
However, something clicked for Trojans on the five-hour bus trip to Marion, Ill., Tuesday. Veteran head coach
Chris Curry encouraged his team to take advantage of "having a seat at the table."
"A good way to explain it is, we just re-started our season," said senior shortstop
Alex Seguine, who earned All-OVC Tournament honors. "The past two years, we have gotten in that tournament as the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds, and it hasn't gone our way. There are a lot of factors, but maybe we were a little over confident. But this year, it was a little easier to wipe away all the negatives and re-start. That is exactly what we did. We were just a brand-new team coming in."
Now, after winning five games in four days, Little Rock is one of the hotter teams in the country and awaits Monday morning's announcement of where they'll play in the NCAA Regionals. It is the school's second berth and first in 14 years.
"All the coaches told us before those games is we were playing with house money," Seguine said. "If we go home, everyone is expecting it. The only people that know what we can do are the guys in our dugout. We know what we are capable of, and we know we can beat anyone in the country when we play our best baseball. That's what we did, and, obviously, the vibes are very good."
Pitching was one of the stories of the run. Wells, a Rogers, Ark., native, pitched a complete game in a 10-1 win over No. 5 seed Southern Indiana in the single-elimination opener. Senior
Jack Cline, a Little Rock native, pitched the same number of pitches as Wells, 126, in a 2-1 complete-game win over Eastern Illinois in the title game. Cline also pitched five innings in a 9-7 victory over SEMO in the second single-elimination game of the day on Wednesday. The Trojans also got seven strong innings from
Brody Bunting in the 4-1 win over Lindenwood in the semifinals. Bunting, a Sherwood, Ark. native, also notched the save against No. 1 seed EIU in the quarterfinals. Seldom-used
Brenden Katz picked up the save in the Lindenwood game and other relievers pitched in.
"With Wells starting us off with a complete game, he set us up really good and basically gave us a bye only throwing one guy in Game 1," Cline said. "That gave us a good setup for the rest of the tournament. Wells just set that tone, and then there was something infectious in the bullpen, and we all had a good feeling with whoever was out there on the mound."
All three players said the energy changed on the way to the tournament. The trip was actually delayed due to bad weather in Marion. That forced the Trojans to practice in Little Rock and leave in the afternoon instead of departing early in the morning and working out at Mountain Dew Park.
Wells said he knew when the Trojans beat SEMO in the second game of the day on Wednesday, they were going to win the tournament.
"I could see and feel that positive attitude with the team," said Cline, who was an all-tournament selection. "We knew if we got out of Little Rock's way, we could play a clean game and essentially beat anyone in the conference, and we didn't feel like there was a roster from top to bottom that was better than ours. We knew we were beating ourselves.
"We go in the tournament thinking, 'Everyone is 0-0 right now and nothing in the past matters.' We got it going on the first pitch of Game 1 and since then, we've just kept it rolling. We are looking to keep it going and play loose wherever we go."
Saturday night as he came off the bus at Gary Hogan Field wearing an OVC Championship T-shirt, Wells' mood was in stark contrast to just five days before.
"It feels great because of how the last two seasons ended and how good our seasons were being the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds," said Wells, who also earned all-tournament recognition. "We just had a sour taste in our mouths going into the tournament. We know how good this team can be. We won eight games in a row this season and beat and SEC team, so we know how good we can be. There were just games we were giving away. It feels really good, but we knew we could do it. We're ready for the Regional and just want to keep it going."
