MVC: Ready to Go
By Jean Neuberger - May 23, 2007
Good morning from a beautiful sun-drenched Hammons Field in the heart of downtown Springfield, Missouri for the first day of the 2007 ConAgra Missouri Valley Baseball Tournament! We are about 25 minutes away from the opening game of today's session, which features the #2 seed Creighton Bluejays and the #5 Southern Illinois Salukis.
We were hoping for at least a decent crowd, but today's attendance for now can only be called a smattering. And by a smattering, I mean 40 people right now (I counted). Nevertheless, we expect some great baseball this morning, so here's a quick preview of the first game.
Southern Illinois enters this contest with a 34-20 mark, 13-11 in conference play. They tied with Bradley and Evansville, but get the #5 seed due to losing tie-breakers to both the Braves and Purple Aces. They'll start LHP Shawn Joy today, who's 5-2 with a 3.30 ERA. Joy picked up a no decision against Creighton earlier in the year, but the Salukis did win the game that he pitched, 4-3.
Creighton, meanwhile, will send Marc Lewis to the mound in hopes that he can shut down the Salukis. Lewis is 8-1 on the season with a 3.35 ERA. He also picked up a no decision against the Salukis, but he didn't last long, going just five innings and allowing thee runs on eight hits. After falling 4-3 to SIU in the first game, the Bluejays defeated the Salukis 5-2 and 7-0 in Omaha to win the regular season series.
SIU is the road team today, and will wear the grey uniforms and maroon caps, while as the home team, Creighton is in the white uniforms with the blue caps.
We're about ready for baseball here in Springfield...the 2007 Missouri Valley Tournament is set to go!
Posted by Jean Neuberger at 11:48 AM on May 23, 2007
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