BATON ROUGE, La. – The Prairie View A&M Panthers captured their 3rd SWAC baseball title in school history Sunday with a 7-4 victory over Mississippi Valley State at Lee-Hines Field. The title is the first since back-to-back championships in 2006 and 2007.
PV broke open a scoreless game in the top of the third taking advantage of two walks to lead off the inning. Brett Valley’s 2-run single gave the Panther a lead they would never relinquish in the title game. Dominiq Harris doubled home Valley to cap the 3-run rally.
Meanwhile, PV starter Derrick Mitchell was keeping the Delta Devils from breaking through with chances to score. MVSU stranded 7 runners in the first 5 innings before breaking through with a run in the 6th.
Just before Mitchell was lifted in the inning for reliever Daniel Castillo, Edmund Cheatham walked in the tally with the bases loaded for MVSU. Castillo came on to get Luke Brumfield to ground into a rally killing double play.
The Panthers got that run back immediately in the 7th when Brad Benes walked with the bases loaded. Cody Parker relieved MVSU starter Kameron Stady and limited the damage to a single run in the inning.
Both teams traded 3 run rallies in the 8th inning.
PV’s big blow came on a 2-run error by Valley 3rd baseman, Seth Milliorn. With the infield drawn and runners on 2nd and 3rd, James Fontenot’s ground ball got away from the Delta Devil defense and allowed the first two of three runs in the inning to plate.
Trailing 7-1 heading into their half of the 8th, the Delta Devils showed the heart they had showed all tournament long and got right back in the game.
Milliorn, Michael Lowe, and Joseph Germaine all had RBI hits in the inning with Milliorn’s being a double. The rally, however, came up short. Allen Cheek’s liner to left field was caught to end the 8th, and Castillo worked a quiet 9th to earn the save in 3.2 innings of work.
Mitchell earned the win for the Panthers. Stady took the loss on the mound for MVSU.
