By RON HIGGINS, Journal Sports
BATON ROUGE – As an Arkansas-Little Rock pitcher who almost quit the team before the start was clinging to a two-run lead over the nation’s No. 3 college baseball team at the NCAA Baton Rouge Regional championship round in a packed Alex Box Stadium, Chris Curry momentarily wandered down memory lane.
He was a 36-year-old pitching coach for Northwestern State when the Little Rock native was hired as UALR’s head coach on July 1, 2014.
“Right after I took the job,” Curry said, “a gentleman that I respect a lot, and I won’t say his name, came into my office. He said, `What are you thinking? This is career suicide. What are you doing?’ I said, `I just think we can win at Little Rock, and I think we can get good players.’
“I believed in the opportunity, believed in Little Rock, and now we have the support, and we just won the biggest game program in history on one of the biggest stages in college baseball. I’m just along for the ride.”
The journey accelerated beyond Curry’s wildest imagination when the Trojans handled LSU 10-4 here on Sunday night to force tonight’s 8 o’clock winner-take-all game for the regional championship to be televised on ESPN2.
Until 12 days ago, Curry’s 11th season as UALR’s baseball boss had seriously run off the rails because of injuries. At one point, the Trojans were without six of nine of their position starters.
They staggered into the Ohio Valley Conference tournament on May 21 as the No. 8 seed, losing 13 of their last 14 regular-season games.
And ever since, they’ve been a raging forest fire that refuses to be extinguished.
UALR won five games in five days to capture the OVC tourney and an automatic bid for the school’s first NCAA tournament appearance in 14 years.
Then in the last two days as the No. 4 seed in the Baton Rouge as the only squad in 64-team field with a losing record, the Trojans’ (27-33) first three NCAA tourney wins in history were elimination games after they lost Friday’s opener 7-0 to the regional’s top seed and No. 6 national seed LSU.
Hitting a combined .369 with seven home runs in the trio of wins, UALR’s 22-10 slugfest sent home No. 3 seed Rhode Island on Saturday, followed by Sunday afternoon’s 8-6 win over No. 2 seed Dallas Baptist.
About three hours later, the Trojans found themselves trailing the Tigers 3-0 in the top of the first inning. UALR starting pitcher Noah Burkey didn’t even make it through the top of the second.
Both fan bases in the crowd of 11,510 sensed blood in the water. The LSU faithful were positive their Tigers would close out UALR and win their 27th regional championship and 24th at home to advance to next weekend’s Super Regionals hosted by LSU.
But then. . .
Trojans’ second baseman Cooper Chaplain drew a one-out walk in the bottom of the second inning, followed by first baseman Angel Cano launching his fourth homer of the regional.
And suddenly, the 45-win Tigers were exposed as mere mortals.
Cano’s three-RBI double in the UALR’s four-run third inning boosted the lead to 6-3.
Then, a string of bottom-feeder relievers on a Trojans’ staff ranked 175th nationally with a 6.42 earned run average managed to make plays that stranded 10 LSU baserunners.
The Tigers began tightening while UALR didn’t.
“They’re playing with no fear, no worries, no pressure, and we have been for weeks now,” Curry said of his team.
Cano, a Cartagena, Colombia native plucked out of Western Oklahoma State College by a UALR assistant after a shoulder injury prevented Cano from signing with a Power 4 conference school, thinks the sky is the limit for the Trojans.
“We’re capable to do a lot of things,” said Cano, who’s batting .421 (8 for 19) in the regional with three homers, five doubles, 14 RBI, and seven runs. “We just stick with the plan, play for each other, and like Coach (Curry) said, `Hold the rope.’ Just stay strong and believe.”
Curry, who played baseball for Mississippi State as a catcher in the late ‘90s, said he’s started using the “Hold the rope” mantra, originated by legendary former LSU head coach Skip Bertman, a week before the start of the OVC tourney.
“I competed against Coach Bertman, he recruited me a little bit and was very, very familiar with the mental side of things,” Curry said. “Coach was cutting-edge in the psychology of baseball and hold the rope.
“I saw Coach last (Saturday) night when I came to watch LSU and Dallas Baptist. I told him, `I stole your line, but I know it’s yours.’ He said, `You use it all you need to use it.’
“Coach Bertman won a lot of games, so that’s a pretty good guy to borrow a phrase from.”
Against the Tigers, no Trojan held the rope better than reliever Malcolm Brown. The junior from Little Rock, who had a 5.50 ERA and a 1-3 record, pitched the last 5.1 innings and held LSU to one run and three hits.
“Just go out there and attack, get strike one, fill up the zone, and see what happens,” Brown said of his approach. You got a defense behind you.”
Brown’s performance vs. LSU wouldn’t have been possible without Curry’s fatherly guidance at the beginning of the spring.
“He (Brown) came into my office,” Curry said, “and said `Hey, Coach, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to play anymore. I’m going to have to go support my family.’”
Since Brown had a year and a half left academically to become the first member of his family to earn a college degree, Curry encouraged him to stay.
“I’m really glad Malcolm did not hang up baseball early in the year to go to work,” Curry said
After the way Brown closed out the Tigers – “They executed a few good pitches at key times, so you have to tip your hat to them,” LSU head coach Jay Johnson said – you can bet Brown is ecstatic he stuck around for Sunday’s memory of a lifetime.
And Monday could even be bigger.
Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia@gmail.com