The Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC) will conduct its baseball championship starting this Thursday and conclude over the weekend. The tournament will be played at Eagle Stadium, Ozark, Alabama.
The top four teams from both the Eastern and Western Divisions will compete in the double-elimination, four-day event with play starting Thursday, April 29th. The championship game is scheduled for Sunday, May 1st. On day one of the SIAC tournament, play begins at 9:00 a.m.
Stillman College, with its amazing run, will enter the tournament as the #1 seed from the West Division with foes Miles College, Kentucky State University and Tuskegee University. The East Division qualifiers are Albany State University, Paine College, Claflin University and Benedict College.
The following is the tournament game schedule with each team’s overall season and conference records in parentheses…
Thursday, April 28
Game 1: 9 AM – 2E Paine (26-18, 13-7) vs. 3W Kentucky State (13-28, 8-13)
Game 2: 12 PM – 1W Stillman (24-22, 16-5) vs. 4E Benedict (26-17, 8-9)
Game 3: 3 PM – 2W Miles (29-15, 12-5) vs. 3E Claflin (20-27, 13-8)
Game 4: 6 PM – 1E Albany State (14-33, 12-6) vs. 4W Tuskegee (11-27, 6-12)
Friday, April 29
Game 5: 9 AM – Gm 1 loser vs. Gm 2 loser
Game 6: 12 PM – Game 3 loser vs. Game 4 loser
Game 7: 3 PM – Gm 1 winner vs. Gm 2 winner
Game 8: 6 PM – Gm 3 winner vs. Gm 4 winner
Saturday, April 30
Game 9: 9AM – Gm 7 loser vs. Gm 6 winner
Game 10: 12 PM – Gm 8 loser vs. Gm 5 winner
Game 11: 3 PM – Gm 7 winner vs Gm 8 winner
Game 12: 6 PM – Gm 9 winner vs. Gm 10 winner
Sunday, May 1
Game 13: 12 PM – Gm 11 loser vs. Gm 12 winner
Game 14: 3 PM – Gm 11 winner vs. Game 13 winner
Coming into the SIAC tournament, unofficial sources claim the Benedict College Tigers ballclub seems to have received a gift from SIAC officials in the form of the last seed in the 2016 SIAC Championship tournament. The conference had recently assigned three forfeit losses to Benedict for games during the regular season with Albany State. The Benedict Tigers had scheduled a three-game series with Albany State University for this past March 26th and then cancelled without a makeup date. Albany State had tried in vain to reschedule a makeup date. Benedict’s revised conference record would have stood at 8-12 and tied with Clark Atlanta University for the final tournament seeding. Both schools were scheduled to face one last opponent on Monday. However, the SIAC rescinded those forfeits, reverting Benedict’s record to 8-9 and then cancelled both teams’ final regular season games, which obviously left more than one party unhappy.
The SIAC issued a memorandum for all spring sports coaches this past April 12, making aware that “coaches do not have the authority to unilaterally pull teams from competition.” Sources indicate that the advisory was only issued to Men’s Tennis, Women’s Tennis and Softball, but not baseball where the biggest infractions seem to have occurred. This week, the SIAC specifically addressed those baseball issues.
Benedict is ranked along with three other SIAC members in Black College Nines Top 10 HBCU baseball poll and has set NCAA Division II stolen base standards for seven years straight.
In my opinion, the original story was correct!! Maybe the word “gift” can be revised to “pass,” the SIAC gave Benedict a “pass.” The reality remains the same. Albany State University re-scheduled the games and were available, willing, and ready to play 3 games against Benedict College. Unfortunately, BC lost the series to Clark-Atlanta University the previous day. This put BC in a situation where they could have missed out on the SIAC tournament with more loses. With ASU being a legitimate threat to BC’s SIAC win/lost record, all three games where cancelled by BC. The excuse given to ASU was the “safety of the buses.” ASU received 3 forfeits for the stunt that was pulled against them. This wrapped up the Eastern Division for ASU. In never before seen action by the SIAC, the 3 forfeit wins were taken away from ASU after all league games were completed. This ultimately took 3 loses away from BC giving them the edge over CAU for the final spot in the SIAC tournament.
In summary, and in my opinion, BC dodged league games that appeared to be difficult for them to win. ASU was not the only team dodged by BC. Outside of league games, BC continued to dodge difficult games against difficult opponents like Flagler, North Greenville, and Edwards Waters to name a few. However, BC had no excuses when it was time to play Morris College, a team in which they beat 32-1 in 7innings, while stealing 9 bases and scoring on every pass ball/wild pitch.
Coach Young:
Thank you for sharing your take on the situation. As always is the case, there are two sides to every story. I appreciate the professional nature with which you made your comments above.
…and thank you for your kind comment regarding the efforts of Black College Nines!
I would like to correct you on the facts of the story, stating that Benedict received a gift to play in the SIAC Tournament. We went to our scheduled series at Albany State the weekend of March 26th. It rained all weekend . Albany canceled the series after we spent two days in the hotel due to rain.
Benedict tried to reschedule the games vs Albany , not the other way around.
The coach, never pulled the team from the attempted rescheduled games on Monday April 18th, because he does not have the authority to do so.
The SIAC Baseball Policy and Procedure states that any rain out games have a 4 day window to play the games friday before the weekend series or Monday after the weekend series. Any rescheduled games after the 4 day window will be counted as Non Conference games and will not count towards the Conference Standings.
Albany made an Ill Advised attempt to have forfeits put on our record. The SIAC Conference has .
a new staff and went along with it until, the new staff researched the Baseball Policy and reversed their decision ..
There was no gift for Benedict to play in the SIAC Tournament, Benedict earned the right to play there.
Thanks
Selwyn Young
Head Baseball Coach
Benedict College
213 804-2456
By the way, you guys are doing a great job reporting black college baseball, I just want you to get the truth . You can contact me any time 213 804-2456 cell
I must apologize to the SIAC office after having a dialog with them a notice was sent out more than 30 days ago mentioning the tournament will take place in Ozark Alabama.
What I would like to leave a comment about is how the SIAC arbitrarily changed the locations of the championship and make the public notice the week of the tournament. This is truly a lack of professionalism. What they need to do is to make Rickwood field the SIAC home for the Championship tournament and with the support of the City of Birmingham it could become a very good host city. The SIAC commissioner and his staffers are very unorganized.