Photo | Courtesy of The University of South Alabama
South Alabama head baseball coach Mark Calvi said Tuesday morning he had just one regret the morning after his team’s season ended in the championship game of the Gainesville Regional of the NCAA Tournament. He wanted more time coaching his team.
“I said [Monday] in the press conference that the only thing, the only regret I’ll have is that I didn’t get at least one more week with this group,” Calvi said in a telephone interview with Lagniappe aboard the team bus as they traveled back to Mobile. “They were an absolute blast to be around and to coach. It was like a team full of wild dogs. They all just supported each other and they fought for each other; they wanted to win and personal agendas were placed aside.
“It was all about winning, winning the next game and being a great teammate. That’s a great atmosphere because in today’s day and age of entitlement, there was none in this group. It was great to see. We were so close.
“We say every year our goal is to win the Sun Belt [Conference] championship and we did it, and our goal is then to get in the [NCAA] Tournament and make a run to the College World Series. We were close. It can be done. It confirmed what I have been saying and what I have been telling the guys — there are several different ways, and it can be done. You can make it to the College World Series and make a run. We just fell a little short of our ultimate goal and that’s to make it to the College World Series and become national champion.
“But what these kids accomplished this year — it wasn’t like we started out front and stayed out front and ran away with this thing. We were hitting .220 for 35 games and we got walked off twice with grand slams and we had our ups and downs.”
The Jaguars, 33-22 on the season, rolled through the Sun Belt Conference Tournament two weeks ago in Montgomery, besting Georgia Southern 10-4 in the championship game. They took that momentum to Gainesville where they were the No. 3 seed in the four-team regional hosted by No. 15 national seed Florida, the regional’s top seed.
After losing a 1-0 decision to Miami in the first game the Jags found their stride, walloping — and eliminating — the Gators 19-1 thanks to a 10-run sixth inning, with all 10 runs scored with two outs. Then the Jags avenged the loss to Miami with a 7-2 victory, setting up a showdown with South Florida, which entered the game with South Alabama unbeaten in the tournament.
The Jags claimed a 4-0 victory over the Bulls in a game that stretched over two days because of a rain postponement, setting up a winner-take-all final game. South Alabama took the early lead but couldn’t hold on and missed a scoring opportunity in the eighth inning with two outs and the bases loaded, losing 6-4, ending the Jags’ season and sending South Florida to the Austin Super Regional this week against Texas.
It was a strong run — South Alabama won the Sun Belt Conference regular-season title, the East Division crown and the league tournament — and for a few games in Gainesville it appeared no one could beat the Jags. Calvi said he’ll remember the run and the way his team pulled together.
“We went to Texas State [during the regular season] and we were within striking distance [of an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament] and we lost two out of three and we were kind of listless,” he recalled. “The kids were playing together but all three things [pitching, fielding, hitting] weren’t happening at the same time. We pitched well all year long and the few times we didn’t pitch well we scored seven or eight runs but we lost 9-8 or something like that.
“We’d waste a good offensive performance or we’d make an error when we could least afford to do it. Our guys, they were together all year. We started swinging the bats better and then in the conference tournament all three things started happening at the same time; literally, those last 10 games [of the season]. They are an energetic group and they showed up every day, but it was different in the conference tournament. It was different. You could feel it. You know when you feel something, and you could feel it. They were not going to lose the conference tournament.
“Looking back on it, it’s almost like the other 11 teams in the league, they could have saved their money and not even come to the tournament. No one in this conference was beating us in the conference tournament. I don’t care who we played or how well they played, no one was going to outplay us.”
Then came Gainesville. As the team made its comeback from the first-round loss momentum began to build, both within the team and back in Mobile as students, fans and just baseball fans in general began following the team. The Jags weren’t a one-man show as contributions came all up and down the lineup and on the mound. There were big hits, including home runs by Michael Sandle and Hunter Stokes; there was solid defense, including a home run-robbing catch by All-America outfielder Ethan Wilson against South Florida on Monday; and there was solid pitching, especially from Miles Smith.
“It was a nice ride,” said Sandle, a senior who batted .313 on the year with 11 doubles, two triples, 11 home runs and 50 runs batted in. “We were playing really well, we were gelling well, just like we knew we could. I was just enjoying every moment we had together. It was good to see all our hard work starting to pay off for us because we had some tough luck during the year.”
Sandle said he’ll always remember this season.
“I’ll remember just hanging out with my teammates, showing up every day for practice and obviously winning the Sun Belt Conference championship,” he said.
Wilson also noted the chemistry of this year’s team and the way the entire team stepped up and performed in the postseason.
“Obviously, it’s been a lot of fun,” he said. “We played our best baseball when we needed to and we went on a little run there, winning the conference tournament and making a little noise down in Gainesville. It’s never fun losing in the championship game like we did but I’m happy for our seniors and for this team. We had a really good group of guys, and we developed some relationships that will last a lifetime. I’m happy with what we accomplished this year.
“All year we knew that we had the chance to be a really good team, we just needed a couple of things to come together. Obviously, we struggled as an offense for most of the year, but when it mattered we were able to score runs. From the fall leading up to the spring, we knew we had the guys to make a run in the postseason, we were just waiting for everything to come together and click and thankfully it did at the right time and we played our best baseball.”
Wilson is projected to be a likely first-round selection in the upcoming Major League Baseball Draft. The former Sun Belt Conference Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year in 2019, when he was also named the National Co-Freshman of the Year, hit .318 with 13 doubles, four triples, eight home runs and 34 RBI.
But Calvi said while there were strong individual performances throughout the season, it was the play of the Jags as a team that takes center stage. It was the kind of performance, he added, that will only enhance the program’s brand going forward.
“It always helps [to have a strong postseason],” he said. “It’s hard to quantify. I don’t know that South Alabama has enough advertising dollars to buy the advertisement that the university got the last two weeks from ESPN. We were trending on Twitter — we were third in the nation trending on Twitter, University of South Alabama baseball, third in the country, while we were beating Florida. That’s something pretty cool, it really is. It definitely helped with recruiting and we’ve been talking with a bunch of kids. There was nothing negative, it was all positive. Anytime we can get our university on ESPN is a good thing.”
A lot of that buzz was created back in Mobile where fans followed the team via radio and TV broadcasts, as well as social media.
“I was getting tweets and texts and social media allows you to have a better window of what’s happening where you’re from,” Calvi said. “I knew that people were kind of going crazy, and they were following along and it was cool, it was really cool. We made a lot of people feel good, even though we feel crappy today, we made a lot of people feel good. It’s been a tough year, not just in Mobile but across this country, and to make people feel good and make them feel better, it was all worth it.”
And there should be more positives, more trending, in the future, Sandle and Wilson said.
“It means a lot. It showed all the people who came through here before us, the foundation they had, and it shows that the formula Coach Calvi has is working,” Sandle said of the team’s season.
Wilson agreed.
“We had a really good senior class, and they gave us really good leadership,” he said. “It was a blast … I think it’s been huge for the program. Obviously, Coach [Nick] Magnifico is going to do a great job in recruiting this offseason and for the guys who will be back next year, I think they’ll be back in a regional and I could very well see them winning in the regionals and advancing to the super regionals.
“This program is always headed in the right direction with Coach Calvi as the head guy; he’s a great coach and an even better man. I’m excited to see what South Alabama can do in the future and I’ll always be a Jag.”
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