Weather won in Hattiesburg on Saturday
It was a day where baseball coaches and sports writers turn into weather men, or at least they tried to be.
There was rain all day in Hattiesburg Saturday and that kept NCAA officials close to the radar and other sources to determine if any baseball could be played at the regional hosted by Southern Mississippi.
Late in the afternoon, it was determined that there was no way to get any action underway and both of Saturday’s games were washed away.
Mississippi State baseball coach Andy Cannizaro knew this could happen.
During his media session prior to leaving for the regional, Cannizaro pretty much warned everyone that rain is something that occurs this time of year in the deep South. When he was the hitting coach at LSU, the Tigers had to deal with poor weather conditions also.
“The weather always dominates,” Cannizaro said last Wednesday. “There’s nobody who can control it. No one in the world knows what’s going to happen, so the best you can do is prepare your team to play each and every day and make sure when they say ‘play ball’ that your guys are ready to go.”
Cannizaro went on with a question and answer session with himself with the media standing right there.
“Is it going to rain this weekend? Probably,”
Cannizaro said. “Does it rain most weekends this time of year? Absolutely.”
It sure did in Hattiesburg Saturday when a record 1.68 inches fell. There may have been an hour or two in the afternoon when there was nothing falling from the sky, but it wasn’t enough time to prepare the field and start a game really.
The dreary Saturday interrupted what started out as a pretty good regional in Hattiesburg after one day.
Friday had two pretty close and competitive games with a good attendance at both.
Southern Mississippi held on to defeat the University of Illinois-Chicago 8-7 in the first game, then MSU fell to South Alabama 6-3 in the nightcap.
There were 4,239 fans on hand at Pete Taylor Park to watch the homestanding Golden Eagles and Flames, then a few more with 4,248 coming out to see the Bulldogs and Jaguars square off for the fourth time this season.
“The atmosphere was incredible,” Cannizaro said after Friday’s outing. “It was an awesome night of college baseball here in Mississippi.”
When MSU takes on Illinois-Chicago today, it will
be breakfast at the ballpark with a starting time of 10 a.m. It’s pretty important too as the Bulldogs are looking to avoid elimination and having their season end.
It could potentially be a long day at the stadium today with three games scheduled and hopefully rain won’t be an issue again.
With that to consider, there will probably still be a reason to check the radar a time or two again today.