Bobcats eliminated from Sun Belt tourney in pool play

Texas State’s last game was almost entirely meaningless.

The Bobcats had no paths of advancing to the Sun Belt tournament semifinals after losing to No. 4 East Division seed Appalachian State, 1-0, Tuesday night in Montgomery, Ala. The format of the pool play system left both the maroon and gold and No. 1 West seed Louisiana devoid of any stakes in their meeting on Wednesday — no matter the result, the Ragin’ Cajuns would have to defeat the Mountaineers in the final game of pool play on Thursday to advance.

Louisiana head coach Matt Deggs called Wednesday night’s game “a glorified practice.” Both he and Texas State head coach Steven Trout said they understood the need for the change in format, which accommodated all 12 teams in the conference during a pandemic-affected season.

But the only benefit Trout feels his team got out of the 12-6 loss to the Ragin’ Cajuns was that it gave him a chance to play all of his seniors one last time.

“I know it's weird with all 12 teams, I don't know if there's a great way to do it,” Trout said. “I know originally, we had it with the eight teams before COVID. And so, I would probably prefer that side of it. So this has happened before, but this is the first time it's happened to me. And so, like I said, I just wasn't a huge fan of it.”

Senior right-handed pitcher Zachary Leigh gave his team a chance to keep their season alive against the Mountaineers on Tuesday. The starter threw 115 pitches, giving up five hits, two walks and one run and striking out five in 7.2 innings of work. He told Trout on two separate occasions not to take him out of the game.

The run support never came through for him, though. The Bobcats’ offense generated five hits on the night, most of them coming with two outs, resulting in the 1-0 shutout loss.

The bats did a better job of finding the ball the next night against Louisiana, matching the Cajuns’ 13 hits and scoring six. But Texas State dug itself in a hole early, surrendering a five-run leadoff inning, and never caught back up.

Trout subbed in multiple pinch runners for his seniors after they got on base late in the game. They received standing ovations from the crowd as they returned to the dugout. Leigh even pinch hit for junior third baseman Justin Thompson to lead off the bottom of the night — the ace’s first at-bat since his freshman season in 2017 — grounding out to the pitcher on a 2-1 count.

“It's just a really good group,” Trout said. “Of course, they brought the chip back in ‘19, which is why I got the (head coaching) job. And so for me, that's why they're so special. I walked in in ‘20 and we didn't know what we were about to go through and then along to this year. And so these guys have just kept their heads down, they kept working. And you know, just super proud of them.”

The 2021 season was a bit of a letdown for a team that was voted to finish second in the West Division in the Sun Belt’s Preseason Coaches Poll and was hoping to build on the success of its 14-4 record in 2020. Trout said the team didn’t feel weighed down by those expectations throughout the year, though, feeling that they had a lot to prove after none of the Bobcats were selected to the preseason all-conference team.

Texas State now faces a serious rebuild moving forward, losing 10 seniors. The group combined to make 277 starts this season, batting in 995 plate appearances and throwing 126.1 innings.

Trout thinks it’ll take him some time to decide what changes need to take place after posting a 21-36 overall record.

“That's the magic word, right? How do we figure out how to turn it around?” Trout said. “I think it's a lot of things. I think COVID had a lot to do with it, I think the camaraderie of our team of not getting to hang out like they normally do — and there's a million excuses I can throw out there, but it's my job to figure out how to turn it around. And so, you know, it always starts on the recruiting side and then moves to how we develop our players and establish our culture. And we've got really good kids and so, we gotta find a way to get them in better positions to go play. And so, I'm still trying to put my finger on it as a whole. But I know I'm super proud of these guys and how they battled even though the record didn't dictate it.”