Grambling baseball makes long-awaited return to friendly confines

Grambling is homeward bound, finally.

The Tigers (0-7) make their belated weekend debut in Grambling against Jarvis Christian on Saturday, having played more baseball games than all but two Southwestern Athletic Conference foes — Texas Southern and Alabama A&M — and just one in the friendly confines. That was back on Feb. 23, a rainy Tuesday night. Grambling has only played that one contest at home since May 2, 2009.

“Nowadays, most guys are so caught up with everything in the home game — the walk-out music, the chants from home crowd,” said first-year GSU coach James Cooper. “We are looking for a boost of enthusiasm.”

Grambling dropped a quartet of games at Centenary (10-0 and 7-2 on Feb. 27; then 10-2 and 6-5 on Feb. 28) and subsequently lost 16-2 on March 2 at Northwestern State.

That skid included a gritty performance in the Shreveport series’ final game — when Grambling pushed the Gents to an extra frame. GSU was initially down 4-1, then rallied to take a 5-4 lead in the sixth before Centenary tied it up in the final scheduled inning and finally won in the eighth. But then Grambling came out flat against Northwestern State, surrendering 9 runs in the initial frame before settling down a bit. Every Demon in the starting lineup had at least one hit.

That’s left Grambling, which has yet to play a SWAC opponent, last in the league for earned-run average — and the only conference team without a win so far in 2010. Cooper has looked inside of those pitching performances, though, and found a platform for growth. He said Eric Zagone, though he’s 0-2 right now, has shown good leadership — and has the best ERA on the team. GSU is fifth in the conference for strikeouts.

“Believe it or not, our pitching is ahead of defense and our hitting,” Cooper told me. “We gave up 9 runs in the first inning with two outs against Northwestern, take that away and we really didn’t get hit too hard. Execution has been the problem with guys on base.”

That meant a return to the fundamentals this week in practice, as Grambling focused on execution with men in scoring position — and the bunt.

“We’re going to try to small ball it from here on out,” Cooper said. “Whether we are down by 10 or up by 10, we are going to bunt — whether we are hitting or not. That’s where we are.”

Grambling is already tops in the SWAC for sacrifice bunts, with senior infielder Steve Kletke boasting a league-best 3. The Tigers are fourth in the SWAC for fielding percentage and hits, and fifth with a team batting average of .248.

“We still believe we can turn this thing around,” Cooper said. “Last year, we started 0-8 and still made the tourament.”

Hawkins, Texas-based Jarvis Christian is affiliated with the Red River Conference in the the 10-member National Intercollegiate Athletic Association, the oldest African-American athletic conference in the U.S. — and a former home to Grambling. The Bulldogs are 5-6 overall, having dropped three recent games against SWAC foes Texas Southern and Alcorn State.

The top batter for Jarvis is Jonathan Cartgena, who is hitting .389 so far this season. He has five doubles, a home run and 21 RBI. The Bulldogs’ lone multiple-game winner in this young season is Joshua Zaragoza, 2-1 with 13 innings pitched and a 9.69 ERA. Randy Cortez boasts a team-best 1.8 ERA, having thrown 10 innings over 3 games with 1 win.