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<\/a>Dontre Graves Jackson State University will open its 60th baseball season on Feb. 18 in their quest to win the Southwestern Athletic Conference Championship.\u00a0 The Tigers will take on Morehead State at Robert \u201cBob\u201d Braddy field in their opening game.<\/p>\n Jackson State looks to improve on their second place finish in the SWAC Eastern Division after finishing second to an undefeated Alabama State University team. The Tigers are predicted to finish second once again, but Johnson knows the trials of a long season.<\/p>\n \u201cWe play a 56-game season, so I\u2019m not going to be able to see what we\u2019re made of until 20 games in. No team will be able to see who they are until 20 games in,\u201d said head Coach Omar Johnson.<\/p>\n JSU is bringing back a multitude of players from last year\u2019s roster, which would lead you to assume that experience will be on this team\u2019s side, but Coach Johnson doesn\u2019t quite agree.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery team is different and it takes about 20 games to see where we\u2019re at. I know these guys can practice I see that every day,\u201d said Johnson.<\/p>\n Key losses to the Tigers will be Jevon Jacobs (graduation), Carlos Diaz (signed to the Cubs), and Jamal Wilson. Jacobs and Wilson combined for a 10-8 record and 4.27 ERA on the mound. At the plate Diaz batted .409, 14 doubles, and 6 home runs which ranked second on the team.<\/p>\n While the losses will hurt, the Tigers will look to the experienced bats of Cornelius Copeland, CJ Newsome, and Jesus Santana. Santana was top 10 in the country with 17 home runs, Copeland, who was top 5 in the country in batting average, and Newsome who was a Louisville Slugger Freshman All-American.<\/p>\n On the mound, the Tigers will look to Miguel Yrigoyen, who comes into the season as preseason All-Conference player and who led the Tigers in strikeouts, wins, and innings pitched. He looks to improve on his 4.61 ERA and help the young pitching staff.<\/p>\n Coach Johnson does not compare this team to his past championship teams.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery year is different and no team is ever the same as the others. The back to back SWAC championship teams had played over 100 games together and had a chemistry that was very special. We aren\u2019t looking to replicate past teams, we\u2019re worried about this season and only this season.\u201d<\/p>\n Coach Johnson was also very open about how the first weekend won\u2019t be a true indicator of how the season will go.<\/p>\n \u201cThe first weekend is played off of pure adrenaline, so I won\u2019t be able to tell who can play and who can\u2019t off our first weekend but I\u2019m very excite for what\u2019s to come,\u201d said Johnson.<\/p>\n Only time and games will tell if the Tigers will once again rise to the top of the SWAC. The Tigers will open the season against Morehead state at 12 p.m. on the Bob Braddy Field at JSU.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dontre Graves MC301 Writer Jackson State University will open its 60th baseball season on Feb. 18 in their quest to win the Southwestern Athletic Conference…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_plus_post_options":"{}","editor_plus_copied_stylings":"{}","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8617"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8617\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/strong>MC301 Writer<\/p>\n