Southland Conference Tournament
5/22/2011 7:08:00 AM | Baseball
After winning its third consecutive regular-season conference title, No. 25-ranked Texas State will be the top seed in the 2011
Southland Conference Baseball Tournament when it begins Wednesday at Bobcat Field in San Marcos, Texas.
The Bobcats claimed their fifth regular-season championship and third outright title last weekend. They finished the regular season with a 35-20 overall and 24-9 in league play.
Texas State will open the tournament against No. 8 seed Nicholls, which finished 26-27 overall and 15-18 in the Southland. The Colonels are making back-to-back tournament appearances for the first time in school history. It is their fourth overall appearance in the tournament. That game will be played Wednesday at 7 p.m. Southeastern Louisiana and Sam Houston State
are the other two teams on that side of the bracket. The Lions drew the No. 4 seed and the Bearkats are the No. 5 seed. That game will be Wednesday at 4 p.m. Southeastern finished 35-20 overall and 18-14 against league teams, while Sam Houston State finished 34-22 and 17-16. The winners of those two games advance to play Thursday at 7 p.m., while the losers will move into the losers' bracket and meet Thursday at noon.
The tournament gets underway Wednesday at 9 a.m. when No. 3 seed Texas A&M-Corpus Christi will square off against No. 6 seed UTSA. The Islanders are making their second tournament appearance and their first since 2008.
The Roadrunners were 26-30 and 16-17. The other half of the bracket pits No. 2 Stephen F. Austin with No. 7 seed Lamar. That game will be played Wednesday at noon. Stephen F. Austin finished within four games of Texas State in the final conference standings, finishing with a 20-13 record against league foes to go with a 34-21 record overall. Lamar, which won last year's tournament as a No. 7 seed, finished the regular season with a 29-25 overall record and a 15-18 Southland record.
The winners of Wednesday's two early games advance to play Thursday at 4 p.m. while the losers play Thursday at 9 a.m.
The tournament is set up in similar fashion to the NCAA College World Series in that there are two brackets with the winners meeting for the championship. Unlike in Omaha, the bracket winners of the Southland tournament meet in a single game to decide the championship. The winner of the Southland tournament is the league's automatic qualifier for the NCAA tournament, which begins with regional play, June 3-6.
This marks the 25th year of the Southland Conference baseball tournament. It began in 1964 though no tournament was played between 1969 and 1992. Since it resumed in 1993, Sam Houston State leads all conference teams with four tournament championships, including three of the last four.
Texas State, which has three tournament championships to its credit, will be trying to match their rivals. The regular-season champion has won the tournament seven times though that has happened just twice since the tournament resumed in 1993. Lamar is the last to have won both championships, doing so in 2004. Texas State was a division winner in 1997 and emerged to win the tournament title.
The schedule of the double-elimination event has four games on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Two "if-necessary" games would be played Saturday before the championship game, which will be played at 6 p.m. and be televised by the Southland Conference Television Network. Every game of the tournament will be streamed live and for free on SLC NOW, which is available on the conference's website, www.Southland.org.
Tickets for the event are available by calling either the Texas State athletics ticket office at 512-245-2272 or online at
www.txstatebobcats.com/tickets. An all-tournament reserved pass is available for $50 for adults. Youth and general admission all-tournament passes are $45. Individual day tickets are available for $15 for adults and $12 for youth. Students at Southland institutions may get in free by showing a valid student ID card.
Southland Conference Baseball Tournament Seeds
1. Texas State
2. Stephen F. Austin
3. Texas A&M-Corpus Christi
4. Southeastern Louisiana
5. Sam Houston State
6. UTSA
7. Lamar
8. Nicholls
Opening Round Matchups
Wednesday, May 25
Game One: No. 6 UTSA vs. No. 3 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, 9 a.m.
Game Two: No. 7 Lamar vs. No. 2 Stephen F. Austin, Noon
Game Three: No. 5 Sam Houston State vs. No. 4 Southeastern Louisiana, 4 p.m.
Game Four: No. 8 Nicholls State vs. No. 1 Texas State, 7 p.m.
