Cathleen Allison/Nevada Appeal
The road to the conference championship began last season for 11 members of the Western Nevada baseball team.
That group, along with the sophomores who left following last season, had a chance to take the conference title going into the second-to-last series of the year.
All the Wildcats needed to do was sweep the remaining eight games on its schedule against two teams that had a combined 13 wins.
But after winning the first two, the Wildcats lost control of their own destiny by dropping a 2-1 game to Colorado Northwestern. They won their last six games, but it didn't matter. The Scenic West Athletic Conference title belonged to Southern Nevada along with the No. 1 seed in the tournament.
The Coyotes won the conference tournament and the Wildcats started their summer earlier than they had hoped.
"I think from the day the season ended last year it's been in the back of their minds," WNC coach D.J. Whittemore said. "I think that everything they've done all year has been with a chip on their shoulder. The sophomore class is very motivated and you could see that in the regular season. They showed up and played everyday."
There was no grand pledge at the beginning of the 2009 season that the team wouldn't allow itself to be in the same position again, or even a word about it, according to the players.
Instead, those 11 guys just went back to work taking batting practice, pitching in pressure situations and taking every game as it was: One game.
Sure enough, the Wildcats were in a similar situation again this season.
They needed to win two of their four games going into the final weekend.
Instead, they took three straight and had the fourth game of their series with Colorado Northwestern canceled because of weather. The Wildcats won the conference title by five games over Southern Nevada and were able to breath a sigh of relief.
"Nobody's really said anything (about last year)," said Jordan Lewis, the Wildcats' freshman starting pitcher. "Like playing Colorado, they took it for granted and apparently lost one that cost them the title so it wasn't going to happen another time."
Now the Wildcats get the task of trying to win the tourney title on their home field, John L. Harvey Field. The tournament begins at 10 a.m., today when No. 6-seeded Colorado Northwestern takes on No. 3 seed Southern Idaho. That game will be followed by No. 4 Salt Lake versus No. 5 Eastern Utah.
Only one team in the previous three seasons has won the tournament on its home field, CSN last season. WNC hosted the tourney in 2006, but won just one game before dropping two straight and being eliminated.
"Being first or second (in the conference), I think the bye is as much or more important than home field advantage," Southern Nevada coach Tim Chambers said in a phone interview prior to his team's series against WNC in mid-April.
WNC and second-seeded CSN will both get first-round byes before playing games Thursday.
Even during the regular season, the lowest of teams proved they could sneak in a win or at least make things interesting. Southern Nevada backed into the playoffs after losing two of its scheduled four games to Eastern Utah (12-25 SWAC, 19-32) in the final series of the season. The other two games were canceled due to weather.
"Each team has their guy," WNC pitcher Kyle Starratt said. "CSI has (Tyler) Chism, CSN has (Marvin) Campbell who hit really well against us when they were here."
Chism has the second highest batting average in the conference with a .373, which only trails teammate Victor Spencer's .385. Campbell hit a home run at John L. Harvey Field in April that cleared the berm in right field, almost 400 feet away from home plate.
The Wildcats aren't without their own offensive power.
Lance Ray leads the team with a .336 batting average and they also return co-conference player of the year Brian Barnett, who has eight home runs on the year.
"The conference is more offensive than any year in the past," Whittemore said. "I don't know if that's because the hitters are better or the pitches are worse. I think potentially it might be that the strike zone has evolved to where you've got to throw it over the plate for them to say strike and when that happens you get more balls put into play and more runs."