Hornet Chat

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the 2013 baseball season, it’s patience.

You have to crawl before you can walk and walk before you can run. And if you’re Alabama State’s baseball team, you’re still not ready for the NCAA Tournament.

That will fall to more experienced hands as Jackson State and Prairie View A&M battle it out for the Southwestern Athletic Conference baseball tournament title and the NCAA berth that goes with it. If you looked at the regular season, you might have thought it was Alabama State’s turn. The Hornets had beaten Prairie View in the regular season and again in the first round of the tournament and had won their regular-season head-to-head matchup with Jackson State.

But none of that matters when it’s time to pick the conference’s best team for the NCAA regional. Jackson State and Prairie View are accustomed to being in that position and know how to play when the stakes are higher.

Alabama State does not.

One game away from the SWAC tournament championship game, the Hornets fell flat. Suddenly, their offense couldn’t produce. Suddenly, it was the other team confidently making the plays while the Hornets looked around in disbelief that they had reached the semifinals unbeaten.

Saturday’s loss to Prairie View was more of the same. Alabama State took a 2-0 lead on a two-run hit by Waldyvan Estrada, then shut down the offense for the day. Prairie View rallied with a two-run home run in the bottom half of the inning and never looked back. The Panthers erased a 3-2 Hornet lead a couple of innings later with a two-out rally in the seventh, scoring three runs for a 5-3 lead, then pulled away with three more in the eighth.

Baseball is a game of confidence. With apologies to Prairie View, there are few in this world that believe the Panthers (27-26) can stay on the field with the Hornets when you match talent against talent, but it takes more than just talent to advance when the stakes are raised.

Alabama State isn’t ready to be counted among that group yet. So the Hornets will have to wait until 2014 and think about what could have — and should have — been. Sometimes, you can be the champion because you’re simply that much better than everyone else and all those intangibles like pressure never enter the picture. Sometimes, you have to raise your level of play to be a champion.

That’s the next step for the 2014 Hornets.

In a defensive struggle that lasted well into the night, Alabama State blinked.

Prairie View scored two runs in the eighth inning with the help of a Hornet error and beat ASU 2-1 in the Southwestern Athletic Conference baseball tournament, forcing a second game Saturday at 3 p.m. The winner advances to the championship game on Sunday at 2 p.m. The loser will pack up its bats until 2014.

Jackson State awaits the winner, as does the dream of playing in the NCAA regionals.

Alabama State (32-24) manufactured a run in the first inning as Leo Rojas hit a one-out double, went to third on a groundout and stole home to give ASU its only run of the game. The Panthers put together back-to-back leadoff hits in the eighth inning to tie the game, then scored the game-winning run on an ASU error.

Joseph Camacho pitched seven innings for the Hornets and surrendered just two hits while striking out eight but had no offensive help from his teammates. Rojas, Waldyvan Estrada and Dexter Price had the only hits for the Hornets.

Alabama State’s version of Midnight Madness was a wild 10-9 victory over Southern to advance to the semifinals of the Southwestern Athletic Conference baseball tournament for the first time in the program’s history.

Alabama State and Jackson State remain the only unbeaten teams in the tournament. The winner advances to the NCAA Tournament, most likely against a Southeastern Conference opponent — either LSU in Baton Rouge or top-ranked Vanderbilt in Nashville. If ASU wins, they would likely draw a trip to Nashville.

The Hornets are one step closer to the NCAA goal by scoring four runs in the eighth and three more in the ninth to erase a six-run deficit in a game that started after 10 p.m. and wasn’t over until well after midnight.

Trailing 9-3 in the eighth, the Hornets came to life with a one-out, bases-loaded walk to Richard Amion, followed by a two-run double by Leo Rojas that helped trim the deficit to 9-7. With one out in the ninth, Emmanuel Marrero doubled down the left field line to drive in Dillon Cooper and send Dexter Price to third. Pinch hitter Raul Perez then put down a perfectly executed safety squeeze bunt to score Price and when the ball was misplayed by Southern, Marrero continued home with the game-winning run.

Now, Southern and Prairie View, the two teams beaten by ASU in the tournament, will fight it out for the right to face the Hornets again at 6 p.m. tonight. The winner of the Southern-Prairie View game must beat Alabama State twice — once on Friday, once on Saturday — to keep the Hornets out of the championship game.

On the other side of the bracket, Alcorn State and Texas Southern will be battling to determine which one takes on Jackson State, needing two wins over the Tigers to keep them out of the championship game on Sunday at 2 p.m.