April 16, 2002

‘Riders Move To 12^th In National Baseball Poll

Magnolia, Ark.-Southern Arkansas University continues to inch their way back toward a top 10 finish in the national baseball poll conducted by Collegiate Baseball Newspaper. Steve Goodheart’s Muleriders (37-10) reached as high as number seven before falling to 15^th after losing a three-game series to Delta State University three weeks ago. A week later, SAU was 14^th after a three-game sweep of Ouachita Baptist University and after another sweep of a three-game series with Christian Brothers University last weekend, the ‘Riders are 12^th this week.

Delta State (35-4), ranked first in the poll last week, fell to second after losing one of their three games to the University of Central Arkansas last week. California State-Chico (38-5), number-one ranked before DSU replaced them, returns to first place this week. Chico polled 478 points to DSU’s 466. SAU received 304 points, four behind Georgia College & Science’s 308. Georgia C&S (27-13) has lost two of three to Valdosta State University (31-13), winning 5-4 and losing 7-2 and 4-1, and split with State University of West Georgia, winning 9-6 and losing 21-3. VSU and SUWG are members of the Gulf South Conference.

GSC members other than DSU and SAU ranked are the University of Alabama-Huntsville (28-9), ninth with 346 points; the University of North Alabama (28-12), 15^th with 252 points; and Valdosta (33-13) is 28^th with 46 points. West Georgia is unranked.

The ‘Riders have three games remaining to be played Saturday and Sunday at Henderson State University. SAU needs to sweep HSU to have a chance of catching GSC West Division leader DSU. DSU has six games left against Arkansas Tech University and Harding University.

DSU and SAU have clinched a berth in the conference tournament. The Statesmen and ‘Riders are going down the stretch with league records of 14-2 (.875) and 16-3 (.842), respectively. For the ‘Riders to win the loop championship, DSU needs to either lose two of their six remaining games or lose one and get rained out another. Harding is third at 12-5.

It was recently learned that Orlando Mijares, who played in SAU’s first 22 games and started in 20 of them at catcher, has a broken wrist. Mijares was expected to return to action as the injury was not believed to be serious when he was first sidelined. Fortunately, the ‘Riders have two other catchers who have stepped up to meet the challenge, Jason Arrowood and Chris Manley.