The Tribune

By Renaldo Dorsett

Tribune Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

SEVERAL Bahamian baseball players made deep runs with their respective progammes during the NCAA Division I Conference championships and advanced to the NCAA Tournament regionals as College World Series qualification continues.

Ellison Hanna’s Indiana State Sycamores and BJ Murray’s FAU Owls secured spots in the regional tournament bracket when the field was announced yesterday.

This stage of the NCAA Tournament will include 16 different regional sites throughout the country.

The Sycamores were selected as the No. 2 seed in the NCAA Nashville Regional. They will face the No. 3 seed McNeese, Friday, May 31, at 1 pm.

Indiana State won the 2019 Missouri Valley Conference Tournament after they defeated the Dallas Baptist Patriots in consecutive games Saturday night.

They defeated the Patriots 9-5 in game one to force a final deciding game which they dominated by a score of 16-3 to gain the automatic bid to regionals.

They finished the season at 41-16 and it marked the 10th NCAA postseason appearance in Sycamores history.

The remainder of the Nashville regional will include No. 2 overall seed and hosts Vanderbilt Commodores and the No.4 seed Ohio State Buckeyes who won the Big 10 Tournament Championship.

Hanna, a junior transfer from Kirkwood Community College, appeared in 13 games of his first season with the Sycamores. In seven starts, he hit two home runs, totalled five RBI and scored three runs.

Murray and the Owls finished as runners-up in the Conference USA Tournament Championship, but still gained an at-large bid as the No.29 ranked team in the country.

FAU was selected as the No.2 seed in the Athens Region and will face the No.3 Florida State Seminoles, Friday, May 31 at noon.

The remainder of the region includes the top overall seed Georgia and No.4 seed Mercer.

FAU finished the season 40-19 FAU and won the Conference USA regular season championship. They lost in the Conference Tournament championship game to Southern Mississippi, 4-0 on Sunday.

The Owls reached the NCAA Tournament for the fourth time in five years.

Murray is in his freshman season with the programme, appeared in 19 games with six starts. In the first appearance of his collegiate career, Murray hit a home run and scored two runs on February 15 in a win over Cincinnati.

Allbry Major and the Xavier Musketeers also finished as runners-up in the Big East Conference Tournament Championship, but did not receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.

The Musketeers lost to the top overall seed Creighton Blue Jays, 9-8, on Saturday to bring their postseason run to an end.

Major homered in the first inning, his seventh of the year, and went 2-5 with two runs scored.

Xavier would get the tying run to third base in the top of the ninth, but was unable to score the equaliser.

Individually, the sophomore outfielder was named to the conference’s All-Tournament Team as he finished the tournament .294 with three doubles in his five hits. The Musketeers finished the season 27-31.

Major was named Big East Player of the Week on April 9 for his performance in a series against Georgetown. He collected six hits, including a walk-off double in the series finale.

During the week he hit .462 in the sweep, 6-13.

On the season, Major hit .281 with an .829 OPS, 57 hits, seven home runs, 34 RBI and 32 runs scored.

Both seniors, Tevin Symonette and Cole Dubet saw their teams fall short in their conference tournaments but had standout individual seasons in their final collegiate campaigns.

Symonette and the Lipscomb saw its season come to an end last week at the ASUN Championship with a 6-5 loss to Stetson. Symonette finished 2-4 and scored two runs. He was named an ASUN All-Conference first team selection at the end of the regular season.

Symonette saw action in 43 the games during his senior campaign and made 42 starts in left field. He finished with a .286 batting average and led the team in home runs (7), doubles (12) and slugging percentage (.524). After missing nearly two weeks with an injury in the middle of the season, the Freeport, Bahamas, native turned it on down the stretch.

Against conference opponents, he compiled a .301 batting average with five home runs and 13 RBI, while slugging .616. His five long balls were tied for the third most against league foes and he ranked second in slugging percentage.

On April 29 he earned his first career ASUN Player of the Week award after carrying Lipscomb to a series sweep of Stetson. He hit .500 with three home runs and four RBI during the series, as well as recording double-digit putouts in the outfield with some spectacular diving catches.

Symonette homered in each of the three games and his solo shot in the series was the difference in a 3-2 victory.

Dubet and the St Louis Billikens were eliminated from the Atlantic 10 tournament after a pair of losses last week.

St Louis, the No. 7-seed in the bracket, lost its first game 2-0 against No.2 seed Davidson at Fordham University’s Houlihan Park. They followed with a 2-1 loss to Rhode Island in the 10th inning.

The Billikens concluded their season with a 25-30 record.

Dubet was named an A-10 All-Conference Second Team selection.

The four-year starter hit .324 this season and was tied for the team lead with seven home runs. For his career, Dubet has played in a total of 214 games for the Billikens, good for fifth all-time.

During his stellar senior season, Dubet was named A-10 Conference Player of the Week on May 13. In three games against the George Mason Patriots, Dubet went 10-15 (.667) with two home runs, three doubles, 10 RBIs and seven runs scored. He had 19 total bases in the series.

On his senior day on Sunday, Dubet tied a school single-game record with five hits. He finished the afternoon 5-5 with two home runs, five RBIs and four runs scored.

Dubet appeared in 52 games this season, all of which were starts. He collected 70 hits (second on the team) with a .323 average, with 14 doubles, seven home runs, drove in 37 RBI (third on the team), and scored 36 runs. He posted a .360 OBP, .493 slugging percentage and a fielding percentage of .975.