By JJ Sledge
After 45 wins, a regular season Conference Title and a runner-up finish in the conference tournament, Louisiana Tech was awarded a regional bid as the #2 seed in the Arkansas Regional for the 2024 NCAA Baseball Tournament. Those 45 wins, by the way, were in the top 3 nationally entering the NCAA Tournament out of the roughly 300 schools that play D-1 baseball.
This past weekend, I had the opportunity to travel to Fayetteville to watch the Diamond Dogs play in their third regional in four years. Here’s how I’d sum it up:
Facilities: 5/5
The University of Arkansas may have one of the best baseball facilities in the country. Baum-Walker Stadium is one of the nicest college parks I’ve ever seen. Former Tech great Parker Bates told me Saturday it is significantly better than the Northwest Arkansas minor league stadium he played in just minutes up the road. The concourses are incredibly spacious and have everything from tacos and barbecue to pizza and frozen custard. There was also a “grab and go” area where you could grab cold drinks and snacks of any kind and then do a self-checkout that scanned your items for you. And of course, there’s the infamous Hog Pen. The left field area is home to some of the rowdier Hogs who are known to line up hours before games just to get first shot at choosing their seats.
The Hogs also have a slightly larger version of what Tech has at the Love Shack, with a facility housing the coaches offices, baseball meeting rooms, batting cages and a bullpen. In addition, they also have another facility just across the street that is shared with the track team. I took a peek inside of that facility and it is massive. I can see why the Arkansas track team has the success it does.
Atmosphere: 2/5
To be honest, I wanted to give this a higher score. There may have been 500 people at each of the two Tech games. The fan bases for both teams stayed in the game. They were loud and proud supporting their schools. Tech’s fan base surprised me and showed up. My estimate would be 200-300 Tech fans were there, which includes the players and coaches families. Even when Tech was down, the fans never gave up on them. Some of the players’ families and girlfriends kept trying to keep them going even when it was clear the game was not going to end in Tech’s favor. That part gives it a 4.5 out of 5.
I don’t want to be overly negative, but there was one thing that I felt could have been handled much better than it was. For context, Tech’s game ended just before 5 pm and the next game of the day was at 8 pm. The family and friends of Tech players had gathered just inside the gate that the team bus was parked by to wait for them to exit the field. As the last of the players made their way out, roughly 20 minutes after the game ended, the Arkansas security team and the stadium workers began to essentially escort the Tech crowd out of the gate. Some of the Tech seniors had just played their final game of college baseball. Some players may have just played their final competitive baseball game ever. Hugs and tears were being shared all over. Now maybe this is their protocol, but in that moment, there was essentially no empathy or regard for the situation. To make it worse, they drove their trash vehicle right through the middle of the Tech crowd a few minutes later. I understand they have a job to do, but you can give people a moment to console someone. There was still plenty of time to give people a moment and then finish your job. I now understand why so many parents had mentioned they didn’t want to play up there.
Games: 2/5
Obviously this score is biased. Unfortunately, Tech just ran out of gas at the wrong time. And it didn’t help that there was yet another weather delay that bumped a game into the following day. If you read Teddy Allen’s column in Monday’s Journal, he noted Tech had 6 games this season with an 11 am or earlier start, and Saturday marked the 11th time they’d been on a bus by 8 am to go somewhere. Considering it was the third consecutive weekend marked by a weather issue, and second straight with potential extra games, I think everything just caught up to them. Which is a shame because this team was something special.
Friday night’s game could not have gone any worse for the Dogs against Kansas State. In the blink of an eye, Tech was down 7-1 after two innings. Despite being down 9-4 after five innings, it felt like Tech was slowly crawling back into the game. Unfortunately, that’s when the rain hit. So, the game was paused for 13 hours until 11 am Saturday morning. I’ve never seen a rain cell do what it did up there. The cell moved in fast, and then just stopped over the city. Unfortunately, it didn’t move out until after midnight. And that didn’t help Tech.
Saturday was a blur. Like Teddy said, the early bus trips were taking their toll. In a heartbreaking scenario, senior catcher and all time Tech great Jorge Corona was ruled out for all of Saturday due to a nagging finger injury. Before we knew it, the game was over and it was a 19-4 final score in favor of K-State. With just over an hour between games, Tech was really up against the wall as they faced SEMO. And it was clear that everything caught up with them. Down 2-1 in the 4th, the wheels finally came off. An uncharacteristic inning from Tech pitchers led to seven SEMO runs. And despite a valiant effort by Connor Nation to stop the bleeding, it was too late. Tech would fall 9-3 to end the season.
I do want to give props to Kansas State. This was a team that was one of the last teams to get into the tournament, and not without some controversy. Many felt they did not deserve a bid, including a team from their own conference who raised some points that K-State having a committee member may have been the difference on who got in. But they shut the doubters up quickly. They won the regional by an average of 11-4 (slightly skewed by win over Tech) in their three games. Hopefully, they will continue the trend of going on to Omaha like the previous two winners of the regionals Tech participated in (NC State in 2021, Texas in 2022).
Overall Regional Score: 3/5
Obviously, the season didn’t end how any Tech fan or player had hoped. It was clear that the past few weeks had finally caught up with the Diamond Dogs. And it was heartbreaking to see such a stellar season end how it did. Especially for those five seniors who have been with the program through three regional appearances, two regular season championship titles and a conference tournament crown. So, the overall regional score reflects a disappointing end and how things went in Fayetteville.
After 64 games, here we are. It’s hard to believe that the season has now concluded for the 2024 Louisiana Tech Baseball team. It feels like just yesterday they were taking the field for the first time against Northern Colorado on a Friday afternoon in February. And now, for the first time in nearly 5 months, there won’t be a game this upcoming weekend. Here’s how I’d rank the 2024 Diamond Dogs Season:
Overall Season Score: 4.5/5
If you had told Tech fans that the 2024 team would finish with 45 wins and a regional appearance, there may have been some disbelief. Especially when you consider Tech was coming off its first losing season since Coach Burroughs arrived on campus.
But if there’s one word I can think of to describe this team, it would be resilient.
At one point, this team was 12-0 in early March. After a tough month of March and early April, including some unfortunate injuries and being swept at Arizona, Tech stood 27-12 as they headed to play at conference foe DBU on April 19. But the Diamond Dogs showed their resilience. Including that series win, Tech went 15-3 during the rest of the regular season to clinch the regular season conference crown.
Even in the conference tournament, they showed that same resilience. After a bizarre night which ultimately led to playing three outs the next morning, they took one on the chin the next day against a team they’d just swept the previous weekend. But they weren’t ready to quit. Playing 5 games in just over 72 hours, the Dogs fought and clawed their way to the conference championship game. And while one inning ultimately ended hopes of a conference title sweep, they kept fighting to the bitter end.
There were several unknowns to start, like who would be pitching. But that actually became a bright spot. You had virtually unknown Luke Nichols come in from a small college in Missouri and end up being a first team all-conference member. And Luke’s final overall record was not reflective of how well he pitched throughout the year. Then there was ace reliever Sam Brodersen, who transferred from D-II Wingate for his final year of college ball. He led Tech with 8 wins, as well as leading the team in strikeouts while also making first team all C-USA. And of course you had Ethan Bates, who not only led the country with 17 saves, but also batted over .300 and had 15 homers on his way to being Conference Player of the Year.
On the other side of the ball, you had the return of Cole McConnell. After a season away from the team, he returned to lead the conference in hits and batting average, while also hitting 18 home runs. Jorge Corona arguably had his best season as a Diamond Dog, hitting over .300 with 16 homers while catching nearly 50% of runners trying to steal bases and only committing 3 errors. You had D-II Eckerd College transfer Mike Ballard, who was virtually unknown, but proceeded to start all 64 games and commit only 1 error all year while batting over .300. In my opinion (and also many others), both Jorge and Mike were wrongfully left off the all-conference team despite having better stats than some players who made it. And even though he missed 10 games due to injury and illness, senior Dalton Davis was another all-conference member with a perfect fielding percentage and also being one of 5 Diamond Dogs who hit over .300.
Even though Tech loses 12 seniors, at least six of whom were basically everyday starters, the future is bright. Yes it will be nearly impossible to replace longtime starters like Bulldog Man Adarius Myers in left, McConnell in center, and Corona at catcher. But there are pieces in place who are ready to step up. We saw that with all conference freshman Grant Comeaux this year. After playing most of the early part of the season at first, he moved over to his natural position at third base and thrived. And while sadly that was due to an injury to senior and 2022 C-USA Defensive Player of the Year Logan McLeod, I do want to give a shoutout to Logan. I’ve heard multiple stories about how he stepped up and mentored Comeaux after being injured and replaced as a starter. Even though his senior season didn’t go as planned, he remained a leader in that Bulldog dugout.
Coach Burroughs and his staff have some work ahead of them, but I know they’ll meet the challenge head on. There is still plenty of talent on the roster that isn’t graduating, both in the bullpen and in the dugout. And after the success of last year’s portal finds, I would imagine Tech will be of interest to those wanting to change schools. I can’t wait to see what happens in the fall and then before you know it, it’ll be gameday once again at The Love Shack next February.
