
Coach Pat Hallmark’s UTSA Roadrunners are pushing for a strong finish to the season in hopes of securing a berth in the NCAA tournament. – Photo by Joe Alexander
By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay
Lefthander Conor Myles will start for the UTSA Roadrunners Friday night against the Rice Owls as they attempt a nine-for-nine achievement in the American Athletic Conference.
In other words, the AAC’s regular-season champions are playing their ninth and final conference series of the season, and they’re hoping to run the table and win them all.
Roadrunners coach Pat Hallmark said it’s an important goal to achieve, but he said it’s at least equally important that they win Friday and also Saturday, if possible, to bolster their hopes of a berth in the NCAA tournament.
“That’s where the wins matter a lot,” Hallmark said. “We’re trying to keep ourselves in a position to kind of push that (NCAA) at large (bid possibility). People keep telling us we’re in, and that’s awesome. But three years ago we thought we were in, also. It’s always on our mind. So, yeah, we’d like to win the series because of that and to win every conference series.”
After UTSA rallied from a seven-run deficit to down Rice Thursday night, 15-7, the two teams are scheduled to play again Friday at 6 p.m. and again on Saturday at 1 p.m. at Roadrunner Field.
UTSA (now 40-11 and 21-4 in the AAC) entered the Rice series at No. 20 in the NCAA’s ratings percentage index, or, RPI. They remained 20th when the new RPI was published after Thursday night. It’s a good place to be in terms of the team’s hopes to reach the 64-team NCAA tournament.
But it’s also worth wondering what a loss to Rice or even two more losses might mean for the team’s long-term goals.
That is apparently why Hallmark mentioned the heartbreaking end to the team’s season three years ago. After winning on the road twice at nationally-ranked Southern Mississippi in the 2022 Conference USA tournament, and then losing to the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs in the finals, the Roadrunners settled in at No. 37 on the RPI and did not get an NCAA invitation.
The coach obviously hopes to avoid something like that this season.
If, say, the Roadrunners were to lose twice to Rice in the next few days and then lose the first two games of the AAC tournament next week in Florida, what would happen to their RPI? How far would they fall? How would the NCAA tournament selection committee view a non-power conference team that won eight straight AAC series and won 40 games, but then failed to finish strong?
Thinking about the team’s future in terms of a worst-case scenario also invites speculation on how much UTSA gained Thursday night by coming from behind to win. As it turned out, Rice (17-36, 10-15) actually ascended three spots on the RPI, moving up to No. 209, by collapsing and losing to the Roadrunners with 10 walks and three errors.
If Rice actually advanced in the RPI with such a dispiriting loss, how far would UTSA have fallen if it had failed to rally? Perhaps thinking back to what happened in 2022, Hallmark clearly was upset with his team’s lack of urgency in the first few innings.
“We were down 7-0 and getting no-hit,” he said. “I was frustrated. I didn’t think we were playing well. We were playing (passively) … I just thought we were playing a little soft, a little bit weak. Which boiled down to one or two reasons. Either we were a little arrogant coming out here slightly cocky, slightly arrogant. Or, we were playing like we didn’t want to mess up.
“I’m not sure which, but that’s the way we were playing, so I just kind of told them, this isn’t the way we play. We’re down seven nothing at this point. I said, ‘We might not win this game, but let’s try to play baseball (aggressively). If we screw this up and make a bunch of of mistakes, we need to make ’em aggressively, so, we were fortunate.
“Their pitcher walked us a little bit, but, some of those walks, you got to earn them, too. But that helped us … You could see the momentum shifting.”
After the Roadrunners rallied to win going away, Hallmark reflected on reaching the 40-win milestone, a first for a program that won 39 games in both 1994 and 2008.
“I’m proud of the team,” he said. “I tell everyone that will listen at this point, these kids are wonderful. They’re wonderful people. They’re good at baseball. I’ve been part of other good baseball teams. But the difference in this team is the quality of the person … wonderful. It’s hard to get on ’em. Actually had to motivate myself in the fourth inning to get a little pissed at ’em, the way we were playing, because I like ’em so much.
“I usually have no problem getting on people. They’re a bunch of good people, and I’m lucky to get to coach ’em.”
Records
Rice 17-36, 10-15
UTSA 40-11, 21-4
Coming up
Rice at UTSA, Friday, 6 p.m.
Rice at UTSA, Saturday, 1 p.m. (end of the regular season)
AAC tournament, at Clearwater, Fla., starting Tuesday.
The tournament runs through next weekend, with the finals on Sunday, May 25.
Notable
The only team in the AAC assured of a bid to the NCAA tournament is the winner of the conference’s postseason event in Florida. Eight of 10 AAC teams will qualify, and the Owls are one of them, so they are still in contention for that NCAA automatic bid. UTSA is likely the only team in the AAC with a shot at an at-large bid. As the UTSA coach has noted, speculation is that the Roadrunners are in good shape to be in an NCAA regional. But if the Roadrunners come up short of a title in Clearwater, their fate would be up to a selection committee. That is why it’s so important for them to win Friday and Saturday, if possible.