SWAC baseball tournament to stay in BR

• By JOSEPH SCHIEFELBEIN
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Sep 30, 2008 - UPDATED: 6:35 a.m.

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The Southwestern Athletic Conference baseball tournament will be staying in Baton Rouge for this season, SWAC Commissioner Duer Sharp confirmed Monday.

The conference had considered breaking from its intent to remain at Lee-Hines Field for a second consecutive season.

Also, the conference tournament is tentatively scheduled for May 20-24. That would eliminate the week off between the SWAC tournament and the NCAA tournament that existed recently (and had been significantly longer in seasons past).

“I just think that’s our standard procedure: give two years to allow a school to work out the kinks,” Sharp said. “Just to allow one year, I didn’t think that was fair to Southern.”

After this season, the SWAC tournament will be hosted by Jackson State for the next two seasons. That follows what the conference said in March.

“I made the decision after talking to (Jackson State Athletic Director Robert) Braddy and (Southern coach Roger) Cador,” Sharp said.

A year ago, the SWAC Baseball Championship Subcommittee selected Southern to host the 2008 tournament and Jackson State as the host for the 2009 and 2010 tournaments.

By March, however, the conference decided on having the tournament in Baton Rouge for two seasons and then at Jackson State for the two seasons following that stint.

Though there were talks to go back to the initial announcement, this latest decision keeps the two-year rotation in place.

Sharp said maintaining the rotation allows for schools to better set their budgets.

“It means a lot,” Cador said. “It means we have a commissioner who understands the value of trying to build something before you move it. Duer Sharp has demonstrated that with the commitment.

“This gives us a chance to make it even better in ’09 than it was in ’08.”

This season’s tournament was plagued by heavy rain early and eventually won by Texas Southern, the third seed from the Western Division.