Earlier this month, the Jackson State baseball team was standing on the side of a highway, watching its bus and all its belongings on board burn up.
Ever since that May 5 bus fire, the Tigers have literally risen from the ashes.
They upset top-seed Louisiana-Lafayette 1-0 in the Lafayette Regional Friday, marking this as the program’s first ever win in an NCAA regional.
“We have a lot of seniors and they won a lot of games, especially some of the guys who have been around for four years and redshirts who have for five years,” JSU coach Omar Johnson said following the game. “I felt they wouldn’t be rattled by this situation. There were nearly 15,000 last year at LSU so they’d seen the atmosphere before. You play against the ball and if you do everything you need to against the ball it doesn’t make a difference who’s on the other end.”
And it comes a few weeks after it pulled another upset, that time, in the Southwestern Athletic Conference tournament. JSU defeated conference favorite Alabama State 9-8 for its second straight tournament title, another feat that seemed inevitable considering its slump in the regular season.
JSU (32-23, 9-15 SWAC) didn’t win a single conference series in the second half of the season, but it managed to go 4-0 in the tournament.
Now, throw in Friday’s big win, and the Tigers have made quite the turnaround.
Vincent Anthonia (4-0) – started only four games prior to Friday and wasn’t part of the team’s weekend rotation – took the mound for JSU. The sophomore threw six innings. He gave up five hits but no runs to one of the nation’s top-hitting team.
“I have to give credit to my team,” Anthonia said. “Last night (Thursday) we had a meeting and we told each other to have fun. There was really nothing to lose so just come in and play the game we love.
“I had to trust my change up because that’s basically all I threw the whole game. I knew that I had to keep the ball down because if not they would have kept hitting home runs. I wouldn’t say that I faced a lot of pressure, because you can when the crowd is pumped up. I was fortunate to avoid it.”
The Ragin’ Cajuns (53-8) entered with a batting average of .371, which is second-best in the NCAA, and suffered their first shutout of the season.
Johnson said he believed Anthonia would respond well against Louisiana-Layfayette.
“His last start was against Alabama when they were eighth in the country and he basically shut them out through six innings.” Johnson said. “He’s pitched in the Little League World Series, too, so being on TV and feeling pressure is not a big deal. That’s an outstanding team. We played them close last year in (in Baton Rouge Regional, where they had an unbelievable inning. Aside from that, it was blow-for-blow through the first five or six innings.”
Melvin Rodriguez hit an RBI single in the fourth to drive in Desmond Russell for the only run in the game.
“This is amazing, what we’ve been able to accomplish,” Rodriguez said. “It’s something special. I respect the other team. My teammates, we battled and fought the whole year and when you do, good things happen.”
The Ragin’ Cajuns struggled to capitalize on eight hits as they stranded runners in seven innings. One of their best scoring opportunities came in the eighth.
Alexander Juday faced the heart of ULL’s lineup and had runners on second and third. But he threw out of the jam and struck out Kyle Clement to end the inning. Juday then cruised through the ninth and picked up his third save.
Saturday sets up a Mississippi matchup between JSU and Mississippi State, one of the team’s who donated equipment to JSU after its bus went up in flames. The two face off at 6 p.m. in the double-elimination tournament. The Bulldogs defeated San Diego State earlier in the day 5-2.
— The Clarion-Ledger
Related: Tillery and Anthonia named to Lafayette Regional All-Tournament Team
Related: Jackson State falls 3-1 to Mississippi State at Lafayette Regional