The Tribune

By RENALDO DORSETT

Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

NCAA Division I baseball has moved into respective conference tournaments throughout America and Bahamian players have figured prominently into their team’s postseason results.

Tevin Symonette has been the standout of the group thus far with his late game heroics to lead his Lipscomb Bison past the No.3 ranked Jacksonville University Dolphins 10-8 in the opening round of the Atlantic Sun tournament.

Symonette hit two home runs, went 3-5 at the plate and finished with two runs and three RBI on the night.

After a scoreless first inning, the redshirt freshman leftfielder out of Freeport, Grand Bahama, hit a solo home-run shot to left field. They went ahead 3-0 in the inning. Symonette returned in the fourth inning to hit a two-run homerun to take a 5-0 lead for his team.

“We swung the bat really well,” Lipscomb manager Jeff Forehand said. “Tev had two big homers for us and then Hunter (Hanks) had one. Those really helped jump start our offence, but overall we were seeing the ball good tonight.”

It was the fifth consecutive A-Sun tournament win for the Bison who faced North Florida last night in the second round.

Symonette leads the Bison this season with seven home runs.

In 48 games thus far, Symonette is hitting .309 with 28 runs scored, four stolen bases, slugging at .494, an on-base percentage of .326 and an OPS of .628.

Sebron Mackey and Jashanno Sweeting continued the tradition of Bahamians on the Jackson State Tigers roster, however their season ended prematurely in the Southwestern Athletic Conference semi-final.

They lost 15-4 to Texas Southern.

Mackey a junior from Freeport, Mackey started one game this season and made five appearances out of the bullpen. He recorded 11 strikeouts in 16 innings. Sweeting a junior from Nassau originally attended Garrett College in Maryland, before transferring to JSU. This season he struck out five batters in five relief appearances.

The diversity of the Tigers programme, which has benefitted many Bahamian players, was outlined in a column by Antonio Morales of the Jackson Clarion-Ledger.

“The opportunity in the Bahamas is real limited in terms of playing baseball,” Sweeting said. “Once you reach a certain peak, you have to elevate your game past the Bahamas and that’s why I’m here.”

The Tigers have 38 players on their roster, 15 of which are international players from six different countries.

Tigers manager Omar Johnson said his desire to sign more international players to his programme came from watching a talented Bahamian national team play at the World Baseball Challenge.

“I was in the World Baseball Challenge in British Columbia and I saw the Bahamian national team, and all their kids were teenagers playing at the highest level of international baseball,” Johnson said. “I end up going to their national games, see a couple of kids and end up getting three of them to come.”

Those players were Desmond Russell, Stephen Curtis, Aneko Knowles, who joined the Tigers programme the following season.

“(Diversity) is normal for me,” Johnson said. “It’s good for the Mississippi guys because they don’t see that much diversity and it’s a good situation for these guys to get to know something about different cultures.”

Perez Knowles and and Troy baseball fell to Texas State in the first round of the Sun Belt tournament.

Knowles recorded 10 strikeouts on the year and was 0-1 in a relief role.

As a freshman, last season he appeared in 14 innings, with 11 strikeouts and an ERA just over seven.

Remon Grant and his Grambling State Tigers were defeated in the first round of the SWAC tournament with a 6-3 loss to Southern University.

In eight games on the year, he hit .250 with four RBI and scored four runs.