INDIANS TRY TO KEEP SLIM OVC TITLE HOPES ALIVE

Southeast Missouri State University baseball coach Mark Hogan is realistic about his team's chances of capturing the Ohio Valley Conference regular-season championship.

Simply put, they aren't good. But Hogan knows that about all the Indians can do is try to win as much as possible and hope Eastern Illinois slips up just a bit.

The Indians' next order of business is this weekend's series at Austin Peay, the preseason OVC favorite that has struggled in league play. The squads will play a 2 p.m. doubleheader today and a 2 p.m. single game Sunday.

"We have no control over what Eastern Illinois does," said Hogan. "We just have to take care of our own business and see what happens."

What has happened so far this season is a runaway by Eastern Illinois, which is 14-0 in league play and leads second-place Southeast (8-4) by a whopping five games. The Panthers, who had one contest rained out earlier, have just six OVC games remaining while the Indians have nine left.

Southeast visits Eastern Illinois on the final weekend of the regular season, but for that three-game series to have real meaning, the Indians must get extremely hot and the Panthers must severely stumble.

"Since I've been in the league, I've never seen a team get off to a start like Eastern Illinois has," said Hogan, who is in his seventh season at Southeast. "Every year, it's pretty much come down to the last weekend of the season.

"It still might, but right now it's not looking like it. And if it stays this way, you just have to tip your hat to Eastern Illinois for what would be an unbelievable accomplishment."

To back up what Hogan said, since 1990, only once has the OVC regular-season champion finished at many as 2 1/2 games ahead of the runner-up. And usually it has been a lot closer than that, including last year, when Eastern Kentucky nipped both Southeast and Middle Tennessee by one-half game.

While Southeast (27-14 overall) has been near the top of the conference standings for most of the season, Austin Peay (23-22, 5-7 OVC) finds itself in fifth place and just one game ahead of sixth-place Morehead State, with seventh-place Eastern Kentucky another half-game back.

This weekend's series is vital for Austin Peay because only six of the eight OVC squads qualify for the league tournament that will be played in Paducah, Ky., and the Governors are very much on the bubble right now.

Softball ends home slate

Southeast's softball team, still very much in the hunt for the OVC title -- and the home-field advantage for next week's conference Tournament -- will play its final regular-season games this weekend when Morehead State visits for a three-game series.

The squads will have a 1 p.m. doubleheader today and a 1 p.m. single game Sunday.

Southeast (21-22, 13-4) trails 14-4 Tennessee Tech by one-half game. The Otahkians have four league contests remaining while the Golden Eaglettes have three left.

The Otahkians and Eaglettes will be favored to sweep their remaining games, which would result in a first-place tie. But if that happens, then Tech will host the OVC tourney because it won the season series from Southeast, two games to one.

"We just have to keep winning and we need somebody to beat Tech," said Southeast coach Lana Richmond.

Three Otahkian seniors will have their final regular-season home games this weekend, including standout catcher Renee Enos, who is putting the wraps on a brilliant collegiate career.

Enos, one of the OVC's top hitters at .393, has been either first-team or second-team all-OVC in each of her first three seasons at Southeast and is in the running for Player of the Year honors. She ranks high on several of the career record lists for the Otahkians.

"Renee has had a great career for us," Richmond said.

The other seniors are Jackson High School product Mindy Myers and Jonelle Rietman. Myers has mainly been a pinch-runner in her two seasons at Southeast after transferring from junior college while Rietman, also a juco transfer, was a key bench player last year but an off-season injury has kept her out of action all this year. It is hoped she will be available for pinch-running duty in the OVC Tournament.