Rain finally lets up, but Albany State ousted from regional

LAKELAND, Fla. — Albany State’s long, wet weekend of waiting finally came to an end Monday in a 6-3 loss to Mississippi College, a game that had started 48 hours earlier.

The loss, which took place on a turf practice field at Tigertown after some games were moved from Florida Southern’s stadium, took the Golden Rams out of the NCAA Division II South Regional, a double-elimination tournament that has been delayed repeatedly by rain and lightning.

Albany State’s second loss came in only the fifth game of a tournament that started Thursday morning. Most of those five days were spent waiting for the rain to stop.

“You never expect something like that, but that’s baseball,” said senior right fielder Riliani Familia, who reached base three times and drove in a run in the final game. “All the work we’ve been doing got us to this, so we were just trying to stay focused and do the best we could.”

Mississippi College took a 4-2 lead Saturday before rain postponed that game after four innings. When the game resumed Monday morning, the Choctaws stretched it to 6-2 with a couple runs in the seventh off reliever Tristan Rice.

Familia’s sacrifice fly cut it to 6-3 in the seventh, and the Golden Rams (28-18) threatened in the ninth with leadoff singles by Chasen Roulhac and Kelvin Wimbish. But a double play and a strikeout helped Mississippi College (34-16) escape and move onto an afternoon game against Nova Southeastern.

Roulhac and Lawrence Hyde each had two of Albany State’s seven hits in the second game and Familia had four hits in the two games, but the Golden Rams never sustained a rally. Their five runs came in five different innings.

“We made some mistakes that hurt us, but I’m very thankful (the NCAA) kept us around for so long under tough conditions,” head coach Scot Hemmings said. “Things didn’t go our way here, but we got to play in a big regional tournament against good teams and that’s all you can ask for.”

Technically, teams can be eliminated without a second loss if tournament officials determine it would be necessary to complete the tournament in a reasonable amount of time.

The winner of the South Regional will advance to the NCAA Division II national championship tournament, which begins Saturday in Cary, North Carolina.