The bats stayed hot in Tuskegee’s double-hitter sweep over Virginia State University Saturday, February 11, 2016. Tuskegee , now 5-2 on the young season beat VSU 9-7 in the first game and 16-11 in the second game. Earlier in the week, Tuskegee dropped an 11-3 game on the road at Montevallo University.
The 5-2 start is the best start for the Golden Tigers in many years. Once a perennial favorite to win the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, Tuskegee has only played in the conference championship two times in the last 28 years.
Coach Reginald Hollins hopes he can get his squad ready for conference play when it begins on March 18 in a Saturday double-hitter against the Morehouse Maroon Tigers in Atlanta.
On Monday, February 13, Tuskegee begins a 9 game road trip that will see them play a double hitter in Atlanta against Eastern New Mexico State University, a single game versus Barry University on the 17th in Miami Shores, Florida, followed by a double hitter on the 18th, before Concordia University in Selma, Alabama in two single games. They will close out the road trip in Augusta, Georgia where the Golden Tigers will play two non-conference games against Paine College before returning home for a rematch with Montevallo on March 1.
The Tuskegee team has proven they can score runs. The offense has produced 69 runs in their first 7 games of the 2017 season for a average of 9.85 runs per game. Pitching at times has been good, but the team has committed several miscues in the field. The next nine games are very important to Tuskegee. If they are going to contend for the conference championship, the Golden Tigers will have to clean up some of the sloppy defensive play, continue to get timely hitting and find a couple of pitchers to compliment Joseph Mauldin, who struck out 17 batters in his first start of the season.
Harold Michael Harvey is an American novelist and essayist, the author of Paper puzzle and Justice in the Round, Easier to obtain Than to Maintain: The Globalization of Civil Rights by Charles Steele, Jr.; and the host of Beyond the Law with Harold Michael Harvey. He can be contacted at haroldmichaelharvey.com.