UTSA’s Mason Lytle, the American Athletic Conference’s Player of the Year, will lead the UTSA Roadrunners into the NCAA Austin Regional on Friday in a matchup against the Big 12’s Kansas State Wildcats. – File photo by Joe Alexander
By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay
After reading through some information early Monday on how to deal with worst-case scenarios in life, UTSA’s Pat Hallmark reported to Roadrunner Field.
The coach of the American Athletic Conference’s 44-win, regular-season champions wanted to be prepared just in case something crazy happened and his team was left out of the 64-team NCAA tournament.
As it turned out, Hallmark could have skipped the philosophy lesson and maybe just kicked back and had another cup of coffee.
UTSA’s Pat Hallmark (at right) coached the Roadrunners to a 44-17 record, including 23-4 in the American Athletic Conference.. – File photo by Jerry Briggs
That’s because the NCAA announced that the Roadrunners will play in the national tournament this weekend at the Austin Regional.
Asked about the emotions in the locker room before the televised bracket reveal, Hallmark said there was mostly excitement.
“We thought we were in,” he said. “We put a good resume’ (out) there. The championship holds a lot of weight, from what I’m told, and the way we won (it) — four losses over a 27-game conference season, is pretty impressive.”
At that point, Hallmark started to tease assembled members of the media, testing their knowledge of Latin and ancient philosophy.
“We felt like we were in,” Hallmark said, continuing his story. “Of course, you never know. So there’s always a little bit of nagging thought. So I did a little reading this morning on Premeditatio Malorum.”
Say what?
Reporters didn’t say a word.
“You know what that means?” Hallmark asked a reporter. “(It’s) preparing for the worst. But I did think we were in.”
Armed with a 44-13 record, including 23-4 in conference, everyone associated with the program figured that they would have a place in the field.
But after a 2-2 run in the AAC tournament and an earlier than expected exit in the semifinals, a question loomed as to whether it might affect their seeding or where they would play.
That question, too, was dispelled.
UTSA, named to play in the tournament for the first time in their history with an at-large bid, drew a second seed in the region behind the host Texas Longhorns and ahead of the No. 3 Kansas State Wildcats.
The Houston Christian University Huskies were named as the fourth seed. As a result, Texas will open the regional on Friday at 1 p.m. against Houston Christian. UTSA will play Kansas State in the second game at 6 p.m.
The regional is double elimination and will run through Sunday, or, if necessary, through Monday.
For weeks, UTSA had been projected by national media outlets as a No. 2 seed, and nothing that happened last weekend at the conference tournament in Clearwater, Fla., seemed to make any difference.
Relief pitcher Robert Orloski went 8-0 with a 2.92 earned run average and eight saves during the regular season. – Photo by Joe Alexander
Asked if he thinks this was a “reward bid” for the team’s body of work over the entire season, Hallmark said he doesn’t know.
“Quite frankly, I’m not sure and uh, I don’t care,” he said laughing. “We got a tough regional like they all are. So, again, we’re just eager and hungry to go to work and prepare so we give ourselves a best chance to win on Friday.”
UTSA centerfielder Mason Lytle said he likes the destination because it gives players’ families an opportunity to see the games live, without having to travel out of state.
“Wherever we were going to go, it was going to be exciting to play,” he said “(But) it’s nice playing an hour away, we’ll have fans that can travel. We have a lot of Texas people on the team, so we’ll get a lot of family. So that’ll be pretty nice.
“We’ve already played there once, so we’re pretty familiar and, uh, it’s our big brother school. So it’ll be a fun time.”
In their best win of the year, the Roadrunners defeated the “big brother” Longhorns 8-7 in 12 innings on March 18.
UTSA pitcher Robert Orloski said he started to think as early as last fall that his teammates had a chance to play in the NCAA tournament.
“We were all intense the whole time,” he said. “We never took a day off. Even when it was a lull, the team was still intense. I just think right when the fall started, we knew we had a chance, that we had a good team.”