One final weekend series sits between the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff and its first trip to the SWAC baseball tournament in six years.
UAPB will play Alabama A&M at 2 p.m. Thursday, 2 p.m. Friday and 1 p.m. Saturday at the Bulldog Baseball Field in Huntsville, Ala.
The Golden Lions (16-32, 14-9 SWAC) enter the final weekend of the regular season in fifth place in the SWAC after sweeping both games of a weather-shortened series against Jackson State last weekend.
UAPB needs one win in Huntsville or one Texas Southern loss to Bethune-Cookman to clinch its first trip to the SWAC tournament since 2019.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
The Lions have played the toughest schedule to this point in the SWAC, according to RPI, which ranks UAPB’s schedule 258th. UAPB has played every other team in the conference’s top seven but just two of the bottom five. UAPB was not scheduled to face Mississippi Valley State this year, and the series with Prairie View A&M was canceled due to weather.
Alabama A&M (10-37, 2-24) enters this series in 11th place, only ahead of Alcorn State. The Bulldogs and Braves did not meet during conference play, though Alcorn won two of three games in a non-conference series in early March.
The Bulldogs have won one series this season, taking two of three against MVSU in Huntsville in late March. Starting with the finale of that series, AAMU has lost 21 straight SWAC games entering this week.
AAMU has played without its best player for the past two series. Redshirt junior outfielder Trey Rutledge has the SWAC’s best on base percentage, 0.568, and the fifth best batting average, .392. He has scored 57 times, tied for third most in the conference and is fifth in walks with 38.
Rutledge last played in the Bulldogs’ April 27 home game against Prairie View A&M, where he exited the game between the third and fourth innings.
AAMU’s pitching staff has struggled to identify a consistent weekend starting rotation. No Bulldog pitcher has pitched more than 45.2 innings this season, a mark surpassed by three Golden Lions. One Bulldog has made eight starts this season, while UAPB has three pitchers with eight or more starts.
UAPB ace Kenney Fabian was named SWAC co-pitcher of the week for the second time this season after pitching a complete game shutout last Friday against Jackson State. Fabian continued his streak of moving up the SWAC’s ERA leaderboard with that performance and now sits in second place with a 2.97 ERA. He and JSU’s Eric Elliot are the only SWAC pitchers with a sub-3.00 ERA.
Fabian improved his ERA in SWAC games to 2.20, overtaking Elliot for the top spot in that category.
Last weekend’s two-game sweep of JSU also ensured UAPB will finish with a winning home record, 9-6, for the first time since 2018.