Southeast Missouri State baseball team makes OVC tourney as sixth seed

The Southeast Missouri State baseball team left Capaha Field after Sunday's 5-1 loss to Tennessee Tech believing it had not yet clinched its record 19th consecutive Ohio Valley Conference tournament berth.

But one day later, the Redhawks found out they were in.

The OVC announced Monday that Southeast will be the sixth seed for next week's six-team, double-elimination tournament in Jackson, Tenn.

Southeast will play at 7 p.m. May 22 in the second of two first-round games against the No. 3 seed that has not yet been determined.

"I'm very excited for the opportunity for our team to compete in the OVC tournament," Southeast coach Steve Bieser said. "One of our team goals was to make the tournament, and this allows us an opportunity to fulfill our second goal."

There was some speculation that Eastern Illinois, which is 9-16 in OVC play, would make up a game with Austin Peay from earlier in the season that was weathered out.

Winning that contest and then sweeping last-place Tennessee-Martin in its final conference series would have allowed EIU to finish sixth in the 11-team league.

But the Austin Peay game will not be made up, meaning the Panthers can't catch sixth-place Southeast, which finished its league schedule at 13-17.

SIU Edwardsville, which is 10-17 in OVC play, can finish in a sixth-place tie with Southeast if it sweeps its final conference series. But the Redhawks would own the tie-breaker because they won two of three against SIUE this year.

Southeast, 22-30 overall, will look to get back in the win column later this week when the Redhawks end their regular season with a three-game nonconference home series against Memphis.

The Redhawks have lost nine of their last 10 OVC games and 10 of their last 12 contests overall.