Mississippi Valley State will face Texas Southern Thursday in the first round of the Southwestern Athletic Conference Tournament.
The two teams will play at 6 p.m. the third and final game in the opening round of the six-team, double-elimination event being played at Pearl's Trustmark Park.
Valley (24-30, 20-4 in SWAC), the top seed from the East, hasn't played TSU this season. The Tigers (19-28, 15-9) are the third seed from the Western Division.
In other first-round games, Alcorn State and Southern square off at 10 a.m., while Prairie View takes on Alabama State at 2 p.m.
The Valley-TSU winner will face on Friday the winner of the Alcorn-Southern matchup. The Valley-TSU loser will face the
Prairie View-Alabama State winner.
The Delta Devils will face TSU ace Issac Daniels on Thursday. He is 7-5 on the mound with the best ERA in the league (2.85). He has allowed 73 hits in 912/3 innings and has struck out 95 and walked 24. Opponents are batting just .213 against him.
Valley will counter with senior left-hander Danny Hall, who is 4-9 with a 7.52 ERA. Mark Johnston will likely pitch in the second game of the tournament. He is 5-3 with a n 8.37 ERA.
Valley put up eight runs against Daniels last year in the first round of the tournament, but the Delta Devils lost 9-8. The Delta Devils are 1-1 against Daniels.
TSU beat Valley in the championship game two years ago and is 3-2 against the Devils in tournament play in the last three years.
"We're kind of limping in with a couple of key players injured. Our best hitter Rod Williams went down about a month ago with a knee injury, and we lost our top pitcher Darrel Dinger three weeks ago to an arm injury," Valley coach Doug Shanks said.
"We've got to have some guys step up. Some guys are going to get hot in the tournament; we just hope it's our guys."
