SWAC Champions' Story: Florida A&M Baseball's Year of Redemption
ATLANTA — Florida A&M head baseball coach Jamey Shouppe said after Wednesday's win against Texas Southern that the team to win the 2023 SWAC Tournament would get hot.
"Hopefully, we'll get hot at the right time," Shouppe said. "We're capable of winning this tournament.
The Rattlers did get hot at the right time, bouncing back from a loss against the Eastern Division's No. 1 seed, Alabama State, to defeat Prairie View in an elimination game. That set up a rematch with the Hornets, who the Rattlers had to defeat Friday and Saturday to earn a spot in the championship against Bethune-Cookman.
But for Florida A&M, the team's success this year wasn't just about "getting hot." The Rattlers also had experience on their side, dating back to last year's tournament.
After defeating Prairie View in the opener, the Rattlers played Southern and had early control in the game after Jared Weber hit a grand slam in the 5th inning, scoring 7-0.
But Southern responded with a rally in the bottom half, scoring five runs on the strength of extra-base hits, two errors, and run-scoring singles. With the score 7-5, Southern claimed the lead in the 7th inning with a pair of doubles.
After Weber's grand slam, the Rattlers didn't have a baserunner for three consecutive innings, and a last-ditch effort in the 9th inning fell short as the Jaguars won 8-7.
Florida A&M did manage to win the rematch 11-7 the following, but Southern convincingly won the tiebreaker, defeating the Rattlers 11-2.
Jalen Niles was a member of last year's team. He remembered how the Rattlers allowed Southern to return and how they lost the tiebreaker. The Florida A&M shortstop used that experience to ensure the same fate didn't happen this year.
"We remembered that a lot from last year," Niles said. "We didn't want to allow that to happen again. So we just used that as motivation and kept pushing."
A part of that motivation included cleaning up the fielding. In 2022 the Rattlers committed 90 errors, including two that gave Southern the window to defeat them in last year's tournament. In 2023, the Rattlers committed 77 errors, tied for fourth-least in the SWAC. The .963 fielding percentage was also the fourth-highest in the conference.
"Last year, we weren't a very good defensive team. As a result, we made a lot of errors," Niles said. "In the fall, every day after practice, all of the infielders stayed back, taking ground balls and making sure we didn't have those same problems.
"Towards the end of the year, we started to pick it up, and all the hard work paid off."
It paid off in three double plays against Bethune-Cookman, which kept the Wildcat offense at bay.
Even so, the Wildcats applied the pressure until the end, scoring three runs in the final two innings. But Florida A&M has been in that situation before; it faced a rally against Southern and lost; it faced a rally in the first game against Alabama State in 2023 and lost; the Rattlers faced a rally against the Hornets in the rematch and won.
"So many games in this tournament were like that," Niles said. "Every game after the first Alabama State game, we said, 'We have to get every single out. Can't let any outs go.'"
Shouppe gave his team a lot of credit for the players' mental fortitude, saying, "A lot of times, the game of baseball is played in between the ears. And our guys did a good job controlling what's on that mind to win a championship."
The momentum Florida A&M used to "get hot" during the SWAC baseball tournament was a year in the making, resulting from experience and preparation. Those two factors will now carry the Rattlers into the NCAA Tournament, where they'll face another in-state rival - the national No. 2 seed Florida Gators in an NCAA Regional.
ESPN+ will broadcast the Rattler's first tournament game from Gainesville at 5:30 PM ET on Friday, June 2.