A five-game Louisiana road trip begins Tuesday with the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff’s final two midweek games of the season.
The UAPB baseball team will face Louisiana Tech at 6 p.m. Tuesday and 5 p.m. Wednesday at J.C. Love Field in Ruston, La., on ESPN-Plus.
These two games, UAPB’s final nonconference games of the regular season, will precede UAPB’s three-game weekend series four miles away at Grambling State, which begins on Friday.
UAPB (13-29) is coming off a series win against SWAC leader Bethune-Cookman, which had not lost a SWAC series all season. The Golden Lions won on Friday and Saturday before losing on Sunday. UAPB has won three straight weekend series and eight of its past 11 games.
Head Coach Logan Stout said losing the finale to the Wildcats won’t affect UAPB’s momentum entering this road trip.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
“They’ll be fine,” Stout said. “They’ll be ready to rock and roll. One thing we always talk about with the guys is there’s no sense in going back and reading dry ink. That ink’s dry. You can’t change it, but you got blank pages staring you in the face. Let’s go focus on how we want that ink to turn out.”
UAPB’s recent success hasn’t translated to midweek action. The Golden Lions are 2-22 against non-SWAC opponents this season, including 2-8 in midweek games. UAPB has lost its past six midweek contests.
Both non-conference victories, though, came in two-game midweek series. UAPB won the first of two games against Little Rock 7-4 and the first of two against Eastern Illinois 9-6. Both wins were at home.
The one other two-game midweek series UAPB has played prior to this week was at Missouri. The SEC’s Tigers dominated game one but needed a walk-off hit in the bottom of the ninth inning to escape UAPB in game two.
LA Tech (26-17) is 6-4 in midweek games this season, including 5-1 at home. The one defeat came 6-5 to Lamar, a team which also defeated UAPB 3-1 in midweek action. The Bulldogs have played one prior game against a SWAC team this year, a 14-6 win against Grambling in Ruston.
The Bulldogs are coming off a series loss to Dallas Baptist, which won Friday and Sunday in Ruston. Following the UAPB midweek series, they will travel to Western Kentucky for a vital Conference USA series.
Junior outfielder Sebastian Mexico is Tech’s leading hitter with a .320 batting average and a team-high 33 RBI.
He has six home runs this season, including a walk-off 2-run homer and a game-winning grand slam in Tech’s two wins against FIU, plus a game-winning 3-run shot against Middle Tennessee. All three were to right field, causing Tech fans to dub the area beyond the right field wall the “Gulf of Mexico.”
Tech has the third-best team ERA in Conference USA, 5.04, but the third-lowest batting average, .267.
Neither team has named starting pitchers for either game.
UAPB senior right-hander Chris Bedgood (0-3, 11.12 ERA) has started seven of UAPB’s 10 midweek games, but he did not start last week at Central Arkansas. Stout said junior reliever Emerson Lott (1-0, 6.68 ERA) was scheduled to start the UCA game but was scratched due to illness. It would have been his second start of the season.
Instead, Darrius Brown (0-1, 9.53 ERA) made his first start and pitched 4.0 innings. Stout said Sunday he wants to give innings to as many pitchers as possible to prepare them for the SWAC tournament.
Tech has used four different starters in its past four midweek games. A fifth, junior righty Logan Forsythe (0-0, 5.35 ERA), was scheduled to start last week’s game against Louisiana-Monroe, though that game was postponed due to weather. It would have been his first start this season. Luke Nichols (4-4, 5.48 ERA) started against ULM the week prior.
UAPB is 1-13 all-time against Louisiana Tech, with the lone win coming 5-4 in 2015 in what was the finale of a three-game series. Tech swept the Golden Lions to open the 2017 season, the first under current coach Lane Burroughs, in the most recent meeting.