Life in the Valley

Format in 2025 Creates Potential Headaches for Current Top Teams

With 4 weeks of league play in the books, we’ve learned a lot about the 10 teams that currently comprise the Missouri Valley Conference. We’ve learned each team’s strengths and weaknesses, we’ve seen who the clutch players are, and we have a pretty good handle on a list of contenders for MVC Player and Pitcher of the Year. Next week, the Monday 9 will take a closer look at those award races.

But as we kickoff today’s Monday 9, looking ahead at the MVC Tournament presents us with an interesting conundrum. That, a look at Sunday’s action in all 5 conference series finales, and a look ahead to this week’s mid-week and conference action .. all this week in The Monday 9!

1. Who Will be the #5 Seed?: There’s a long way to go of course before we have to answer this question. But it’s a big deal to the 5 teams currently sitting in the top half of the Valley standings. If the season ended today, well that’d be a surprise to everyone, but for discussion’s sake, the top 4 seeds would be 1) Missouri State (10-2); 2) Illinois State (9-3); 3) Indiana State (7-5); and 4) Murray State (7-5). Currently, Southern Illinois sits in 5th based on the 3-way tiebreaker, centered around SIU’s 1-2 series loss to Indiana State. The Salukis, Sycamores, and Racers are all 7-5 in league play. Murray State hasn’t played either of the other 2, so the SIU/Indiana State results serves as the difference between the 3 teams right now. That’ll change of course as the season plays itself out.
   
   The problem is, whichever team finishes as the 5th seed has to play a single-elimination game on Day 1 of the MVC Tournament against the 8th seed. Right now, that’d be Evansville (5-7), which can throw Kenton Deverman for that game and if he’s on form, that could cause headaches and a quick exit for the #5 seed.
   
   So the goal for these 5 teams above is to do whatever they can to finish in the top 4, and be guaranteed of starting their tournaments in the double-elimination phase on Day 2. All 5 have tremendous offenses. The idea that at least one of them will play in that 5/8 game and could be gone on Day 1 is kind of crazy, but the potential for it happening is there. Just something to keep an eye on.
2. Speaking of the Sycamores: Having split their first two games of the weekend against visiting Southern Illinois, Indiana State needed a win to keep up with Missouri State and avoid falling to .500 in the conference and 4 games out. After a back-and-forth affair Sunday in Terre Haute, the Sycamores (18-17, 7-5) prevailed, 12-8. Indiana State saw leads of 3-1 and 8-3 slip away, with SIU DH Cade Nelis tying the game at 8 in the 7th inning on a sac fly. But the Sycamores responded after the Stretch, scoring 4 times to take the lead for good. Thomas Emerich’s 2-run single made it 10-8 State. Carter Back followed with a sac fly and Nomar Garcia’s RBI single closed the scoring. Carlos Pena homered again and drove in 3. Zack Henderson went 4-for-4 with 3 runs.
   
   SIU’s John Lemm continued his hot streak in the loss, going 2-for-4 with a homer, double, 3 runs, and 2 RBIs. But the Salukis (24-11, 7-5) were stymied over the final innings by Gavin Morris, who improved to 5-3 on the season with 3 scoreless innings on 3 hits and with 2 strikeouts.
3. Braves Win! Braves Win! Braves Win!: I guess you can imagine that header in Skip Caray’s voice. But regardless, Bradley has finally entered the chat. The Braves earned their first Valley win of the season Sunday with a 15-4 victory over visiting Belmont. Cole Luckey powered the Braves to victory with not one but two 3-run homers. He hit one in the 3rd to make it 8-3. Then in the 6th, he did it again, giving Bradley a 13-4 lead. Luckey, a senior from Glenview, Ill., had no homers and 1 RBI on the season entering Sunday’s game.
   
   Timmy O’Brien’s hit his 10th homer of the season to go with 23 RBIs, which ties Bobby Atkinson for the team lead. Brayden Marks and Jackson Horras each pitched 2 innings of scoreless relief for Bradley.
   
   Belmont dropped to 6-6 in the conference, leaving the Bruins (16-22) 1 game back of the 3-way tie for 3rd.
4. Bears Sweep Beacons; Hit Quarter-Century: Missouri State became the first Valley team to reach 10 conference wins this season and the fourth to score at least 25 runs in a game with a 25-7 victory over Valpo Sunday that gave the Bears a sweep. Southern Illinois (25-11 over Bradley), Indiana State (36-6 vs. Wagner), and Murray State (38-1 over Kentucky State) are the others to hit that run mark this season.
   
   Caden Bogenpohl hit the Bears’ lone homer as part of a 4-run, 5-RBI game. Nick Rodriguez extended his hitting streak to 21 games with a 2-for-5 performance. Jake McCutcheon had 4 hits; Zack Stewart walked 5 times and scored 5 runs. Curry Sutherland had the unique 3-3-3-3 box score, going 3-for-3 with 3 runs and 3 RBIs. Missouri State hit 7 doubles.
   
   On the strength of 3 homers, Valparaiso (8-22, 3-9) actually led, 5-4, entering the bottom of the 3rd inning. But from there, it was all Bears. Missouri State outscored Valpo, 20-2, from the 3rd to the 5th innings.
   
   Missouri State has scored 143 runs in 12 conference games – an average of just short of 12 runs per game. The Bears scored 40 this weekend alone.
5. Redbirds Run-Rule Purple Aces in ESPNU Showcase: Illinois State scored 9 runs in the bottom of the 8th inning Sunday to complete a run-rule victory over visiting Evansville, 14-4. The game, which aired nationally on ESPNU, was a tight 4-4 affair after 6 innings, with UE (11-24, 5-7) fighting back from a 4-1 deficit to tie the game in the 6th on an RBI single, hit by pitch, and ground out. But in the 7th, Judah Morris gave the Redbirds (18-16, 9-3) the lead for good with an RBI double.
   
   Still, at 5-4, there was no reason to believe a rout was coming. Evansville had a runner at 2nd with 2 outs in the top of the 8th, but couldn’t score. But then in the Redbirds’ 8th, a couple of defensive miscues, 4 walks, 3 hit by pitches, and 4 hits led to the Redbirds being on the brink of a win, up 13-4 with Shai Robinson at the plate. He drew a bases-loaded walk to end the game as Josh Outlaw scored the 14th run.
   
   Outlaw went 2-for-5 with 2 runs and 3 RBIs. Five Redbirds scored 2 runs each and 4 drove in at least 2 runs. Illinois State had 12 hits, drew 7 walks, reached on 4 errors and had 4 batters plunked. Matthew Donnison and Joe Husak pitched a combined scoreless final 2 2/3 innings to put Illinois State in a position for its offense to take over the game. Illinois State outscored Evansville in the sweep, 38-13, its first sweep of the Purple Aces since 2011.
6. Racers Win High-Scoring Finale to Take Series: Issac Silva earned his 5th win of the season and Murray State pounded out 15 hits and 11 runs to hold off UIC, 11-9, and win the series 2-1. Carson Garner, Will Vierling, and Conner Cunningham all homered for the Racers (23-9, 7-5). Cunningham went 3-for-4 and scored twice. Garner was 2-for-5 with 2 runs and 2 RBIs, while Luke Mistone and Dom Decker each had 3 hits.
   
   But down 11-5, the Flames (9-24, 5-7) didn’t give up. In the 8th inning, Luke Nowak hit a 3-run homer to cut the Murray State lead to just 2 runs. UIC put 2 runners on in the 9th inning with 1 out, bringing the potential go-ahead run to the plate, but a pop to short a grounder to first ended the threat and the game. Kellen Graham got the last 2 outs for the Racers.
   
   Terrick Thompson-Allen also homered for UIC.
7. An Early Peek at RPI: The good folks at D1Baseball are publishing RPI rankings now just about on a daily basis. However, the news isn’t good for Valley teams. Saturday’s win over Indiana State jumped Southern Illinois into the top 100 at #97, but the Salukis dropped 9 spots to 106 with Sunday’s loss to the Sycamores.
   
   SIU at 106, however, is the highest RPI ranking for any Valley team right now, a sure sign that the conference will be a 1-bid league this season. That puts even more importance on the Valley tournament and what we discussed above about avoiding the 5 seed and suffering a potential 1-game exit.
   
   Among Valley teams, here’s how the rest of the conference shapes up as of today: Illinois State (126); Indiana State (140); UIC (154); Murray State (166); Missouri State (171); Belmont (235); Evansville (253); Valparaiso (264); and Bradley (278). There are 307 teams overall, meaning no Valley team is currently in the top one-third of the RPI.
   
   This problem only figures to get worse next year with Missouri State off to Conference USA. Only expansion, and smart expansion at that, is going to get the Valley back to its high mid-major status that it enjoyed for so many years.
   
   I hope the MVC Offices are thinking about this issue as much as I do.
8. Mid-Week Madness: This week offers 4 Valley teams chances at Power-4 competition. Tuesday’s slate features 3 of those games, as Indiana State visits Indiana (Big Ten); Missouri State is at Missouri (SEC); and Valparaiso hits the road to battle Notre Dame (ACC). On Wednesday, Bradley is on the road at Iowa (Big Ten).
   
   Elsewhere Tuesday, Murray State hosts Southeast Missouri; Belmont is home to Middle Tennessee; UIC visits Milwaukee; and Arkansas State pays a house call to Southern Illinois.
   
   Illinois State and Evansville are idle this midweek.
9. Looking Ahead to Weekend 5: With Easter coming up, your Valley baseball weekend gets off to an early start as 3 of the 5 series start on Thursday and run through Saturday. Here are this weekend’s matchups. Game times and streaming information will be on the X feed later in the week. As always, these games are weather permitting:
   
   Indiana State at Evansville (Thurs.-Sat.)
   Murray State at Valparaiso (Thurs.-Sat.)
   Belmont at Southern Illinois (Thurs.-Sat.)
   Illinois State at Bradley (Fri.-Sun.)
   Missouri State at UIC (Fri.-Sun.)

Ed Morgans is the founder of MVCBaseball.com. An Evansville graduate, Ed has written about and broadcast college baseball, while following the sport for 40 years.