Limping into the Tourney

 I followed the seeding race to end the Western Athletic Conference baseball season and it didn't disappoint, if you weren't rooting for a particular team or outcome.

Sam Houston and Grand Canyon had a great race for the championship. Sam came in with a 1.5 game lead. They played a team that was in the bottom three in the standings. GCU, meanwhile, was playing one of the five teams in a virtual tie for third in CBU. Yet, GCU swept the Lancers and Tarleton won two of three to give the Lopes the regular season crown.

Utah Valley beat the UT Arlington squad two to one, same as Seattle's margin over ACU. The Wolverines, by virtue of game cancelations, get the third seed ahead of the Redhawks by percentage points. ACU, thanks to their 2-1 series win over UTA, gets the five seed. The Mavs get the sixth.

In an interesting turn to me, UTRGV played SFA for the final berth into the conference tournament. Now that usually translates to getting the final seed. However, the Vaqueros convincingly beat the Lumberjacks, winning all three games by a combined 44-9. That sweep, combined with CBU's 0-3 weekend, UTRGV claimed the seventh seed and CBU was knocked down to the eighth spot.

Now, for UTA, the last couple of weeks have been pretty poor, but they have been consistent on their schedule. Unlike the UTA softball team, who beat the top teams and lost to the teams below them in the standings, baseball did the opposite. The tied-for-fifth-place Mavericks swept last place Utah Tech, and won two games out of three to Tarleton (11), SFA (10), Sacramento State (9), California Baptist (8) and UTRGV (7). The team UTA tied with in ACU they lost the series, but won a game. The outcome was the same with Seattle and Utah Valley. UTA was swept by second-place Sam. UTA did not play GCU nor 12th place New Mexico State.

It's not often you see a team that beat everyone behind them and lost to everyone ahead of them. Had UTA beaten ACU, they would be fifth and ACU 6th. The scenario of beating-lower-and-losing-to-higher only changes if UTA had won one more against UVU or SU, as ACU would have won the season series and finished behind UTA. 

Also of note is UTA's 11-game-win improvement over the prior year, 2023 postseason play notwithstanding. While the overall record of 26-27 is still a losing record, the team was coming from rock bottom, worst season since 2007, second-worst since 1977. While I'm sure first-year coach Clay Van Hook would like to have a second shot at some of those losses (one-run losses to Tarleton, Seattle, SFA, Cal Baptist and Sam), Maverick Nation wanted this kind of improvement. 

I've documented the pitching struggles a bit. There's one pitcher, Zach Norris, who has a sub-4.00 ERA. And that's just at 3.98. As a team, UTA's combined ERA of 7.06 is ahead of only three teams, all were not tournament qualifiers.

UTA's offense also started to struggle in May. UTA slipped to eighth in team batting average and tied for eighth in runs scored.

The WAC tournament will feature two games on Tuesday. ACU and CBU open up. UTA and UTRGV will have the nightcap. First pitch is scheduled for 6 pm.