Bracket Busters: Jackson State Looks to Sprint to Postseason Success

Image credit: Jackson State dugout (Photo courtesy of Jackson State)

If there’s one thing you should know about Jackson State, it’s that the Tigers are no fun to play against. 

It’s not just that they’ve been dominant in the SWAC this season, although that’s also true. On the way to finishing a perfect 24-0 in league play after a sweep of Mississippi Valley State last weekend, JSU has played in just four one-run conference games this season, all of them against Alabama State. 

But what makes Jackson State a uniquely awful experience for the opposition is the way in which it plays. Offensively, it is the embodiment of the phrase “all gas, no brakes.”

The Tigers have stolen 131 bases this season, tops in the country, with only Wofford’s 117 even in shouting distance. If you break it down by stolen bases per game, JSU’s 3.36 steals per game also leads the nation, with the next-closest team being Hartford with 2.8 steals per game. With only 23 caught stealing, it’s also a pretty efficient base-stealing operation and not just a volume play. 

The stolen base totals stand out because they can be quantified easily, but JSU’s speed can also hurt you when they bunt for hits or go first to third on singles, and the constant threat of the extra base being taken can speed opposing players up, causing an increase in the number of bobbles, hesitations and errors committed by a defense. 

Of course, those bobbles and hesitations will lead to extra bases being taken, which only serves to exacerbate the problem. It’s a vicious cycle for opponents. 

“I’ve been told it’s tough to prepare for us sometimes,” said Jackson State coach Omar Johnson. 

Part of what makes them so tough to prepare for is that it’s difficult to simulate or game plan for speed like that. Pitchers can game plan for how to approach batters and defenses can be positioned to most effectively defend them. Hitters can go into at-bats with approaches tailored to the pitcher on the mound. It’s not quite that simple in trying to cut down a running game. 

That’s especially true when you’re not just talking about one or two guys. Rather, JSU has six players who have stolen at least 12 bases, led by DH Equon Smith’s 24, outfielder Jatavious Melton’s 22 and outfielder Chandler Dillard’s 16. It also makes a difference that most teams don’t have that much depth among speedsters to even practice against if they wanted to try to simulate it. 

“You can’t prepare for team speed, because you don’t have it in practice,” Johnson said. “We’ve got like six guys that are running 6.5, 6.6 (60-yard dashes), a couple running 6.4. So these guys are really running at a high level, and you can’t simulate that in practice.”

This approach isn’t a new phenomenon for Jackson State. Prior to the 2021 season, the team has stolen 100 or more bases in eight out of the last 10 full seasons. The SWAC is annually a conference that dabbles in the running game more than most, but few have made it as much a pillar of its identity as Jackson State. 

That’s owed in part to Johnson’s background as a speedy outfielder himself during his college days at North Alabama and then the few seasons he spent as an assistant at UNA after he was done playing. 

“I played for Mike Lane (at UNA) and that was a big deal,” Johnson said. “When (I) played, I was a good runner. So when I started coaching, I remember talking to one of the coaches and he said you take a little bit of every coach you play for, and you combine that and you come up with your philosophy and what works for you. So I was really fortunate to play for a coach who really believed in the running game and believed in advancing runners and playing the short game.”

Coming into the season, Johnson knew he had a good group on his hands, and he was clearly right about that. Speed might be the calling card, but the team has some balance as well. 

Its running game wouldn’t be all that effective if you could simply keep runners off the bases, but JSU is hitting .316/.428/.442, led by third baseman Ty Hill (.431/.500/.667), Dillard (.367/.451/.449), first baseman Chenar Brown (.357/.428/.659, 8 HR), outfielder C.J. Newsome (.339/.434/.425), Melton (.328/.491/.434) and Smith (.301/.440/.398). 

The pitching staff has a 4.28 team ERA, including a 2.53 mark in SWAC play. A rotation of lefthander Anthony Becerra (8-1, 2.55), lefthander Mario Lopez (5-0, 3.04) and righthander Nikelle Galatas (9-2, 3.33) has been solid all year, and JSU feels good about its chances to win games if it can hand the ball to righthander Steven Davila (3.48 ERA, 33.2 IP, 6 SV) with a lead. 

Becerra has shown an ability to dominate this season, and that’s something to watch for if Jackson State wins the automatic bid in the SWAC Tournament and ends up a No. 4 seed in a regional. 

In 67 innings this season, Becerra has struck out 101 batters and held opponents to a .166 batting average. He struck out 17 against Mississippi Valley State in a complete game one-hitter last weekend, and three weekends ago, he punched out 11 in seven shutout innings against Alabama A&M. Against the best offense he’s faced, Mercer in his first start of the season, he also showed well, giving up five hits and two runs with eight strikeouts in six innings. 

Control can sometimes be an issue for Becerra, as he’s walked 44 batters and hit 13 others, but when he’s in the strike zone, he’s tough to beat. 

“He’s a left-handed guy (and) his fastball is moving as much as his slider,” Johnson said. “He can be tough on anybody. He’s just a really good pitcher because (with his) velocity, you can’t sit there, you’ve got to respect the fastball, because it’s 87-89 (mph). It’s tough to deal with. He can be pretty good.”

Even if he knew he had a good team, Johnson admits he never could have anticipated that the results would be this good in the regular season. 

“We didn’t,” Johnson said about how much of an inkling he had that this team could be this good. “No one tries to go unbeaten, that’s not something you can aim for as a goal because it’s baseball.”

Unfortunately, life in low-major conferences is often unfair, and that means that Jackson State will still need to play well and win the SWAC Tournament next week to punctuate its dominant regular season with a postseason appearance. 

For Johnson, the key is keeping his team looking at what’s right in front of them versus looking ahead, no matter how tempting that might be for a team that is undoubtedly eager to prove itself outside of SWAC competition. 

“Keeping them in the moment,” Johnson said of what his staff is focused on now. “Because a lot of times they’ve had enough success that now they’re looking past the tournament, so you don’t want them to do that. We definitely, just being a competitor, don’t want them to underestimate their opponent.”

Jackson State would make for a fun watch in a regional setting. Maybe it gets out-talented once it starts playing against other postseason-quality teams from bigger leagues and it ends up being a short stay, but winning a game wouldn’t be unprecedented for the program, as it took a game off of host Louisiana-Lafayette in its last regional appearance in 2014. 

But even if it gets to a regional and goes 0-2, you can guarantee a couple of things. For one, the Tigers are going to push the pedal to the metal from start to finish, and that will make for a fun contrast in styles to just about anyone else in college baseball. And second, it’s going to be far from a pleasant and pain-free experience for the teams trying to contain them.