Postseason baseball is a familiar sight in Arkansas.
For 22 of the past 24 years, the University of Arkansas has participated in the NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament. Other than the 2020 season, which ended prematurely due to the covid-19 pandemic, the Razorbacks have only missed out on playing in a regional once since 2002. The Hogs have made seven trips to the College World Series in that span.
What is far less common is the other Division I schools in the Natural State making noise in the postseason.
The University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff has never reached the NCAA tournament. The University of Central Arkansas made it once. Arkansas State University has been twice, but not since 1994.
This past weekend, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock made just its second trip when the Trojans traveled south to the Baton Rouge Regional hosted by No. 6-seed Louisiana State University.
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Nationally, nobody gave the Trojans a chance in Baton Rouge, La. ESPN baseball analysts talked at length over the weekend about the Tigers’ success in regionals they host at Alex Box Stadium. Since the current regional format was adopted in 1999, LSU had hosted 15 regionals and won all of them entering this season.
The Tigers, which won their seventh national championship two years ago, should have made quick work of a regional with three mid-major opponents. If any team was going to have any hope, it likely should have been No. 2-seed Dallas Baptist, a regular regional participant with two super regional appearances.
Instead, it was the No. 4-seeded Trojans who reached the regional final after eliminating both Rhode Island and Dallas Baptist, the latter of which was ranked No. 22 in the coaches’ poll.
A nice run, but surely the Tigers cruised to another super regional, right?
Not quite. LSU went up 3-0 early before Little Rock first baseman Angel Cano hit a 2-run home run in the second inning and a 3-RBI double in the third to put the Trojans in front. A 4-run eighth allowed Little Rock to pull away for a stunning 10-4 victory over the SEC’s mighty Tigers.
The Cinderella run ended Monday night with LSU’s 10-6 victory in the winner-take-all seventh game of the regional, but the Tigers had to rally after Little Rock took a 5-1 lead in the second inning.
It wasn’t quite the storybook ending Little Rock had hoped for, but the Trojans’ run made them national darlings for a weekend.
Again, nobody expected this from a Little Rock team which lost 13 of its final 14 regular season games and only reached the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament on a tiebreaker after finishing tied for eighth in the OVC regular season standings. The Trojans had to go 5-0 in the OVC tournament to even make it to Baton Rouge.
As impressive as Little Rock’s performance was, this wasn’t the first time an Arkansas mid-major made a run.
UCA reached the Starkville Regional final in 2013 and upset host Mississippi State 5-2 before losing the final game 6-1. A-State was one of the final three teams in the six-team Central Regional in 1994 before the current format was introduced.
If those teams can do it, perhaps UAPB can follow in their footsteps one day soon.
After all, the Golden Lions’ first win this season was a 7-4 victory against this same Little Rock team. UAPB also won a game against OVC regular season champ Eastern Illinois, a team Little Rock had to beat twice in the OVC tournament.
UAPB is coming off one of its best baseball seasons in years. First-year coach Logan Stout led the Golden Lions to a fourth-place finish in the SWAC and won two of three games against champions Bethune-Cookman.
Stout has been high on next year’s incoming recruiting class since before the season. He has said getting the Golden Lions to their first regional, and possibly further, is a goal for him.
The Trojans showed that a team don’t necessarily need the most talented roster to make a run. You don’t even have to have a great season. It just takes a team that can weather the storm and get hot at the right time.
You need heroes to step up such as Cano, who was tied for the 85th best batting average in the OVC this season but went on to be named Baton Rouge Regional MVP.
Little Rock found the magic this year. UCA did it in 2013. Could UAPB be next?
Tanner Spearman is a sports reporter for The Pine Bluff Commercial.