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Valparaiso Crusaders

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The Valparaiso Crusaders are a member of the Missouri Valley Conference , playing their home games at Emory G. Bauer Field in Valparaiso, Indiana.

Honors: [ ]

• NCAA Tournament Appearances: 7
• Conference Championships: 1

Notable Alumni: [ ]

• Lloyd McClendon

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2020 Valparaiso Crusaders Schedule

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A shoulder injury derailed his career, but an ankle injury helped Jones find himself at the plate

Times correspondent.

• Mar 22, 2019
• Mar 22, 2019 Updated Mar 24, 2019

Finally healthy and in a groove, Brent Jones enters Valparaiso’s home opener, a doubleheader against Butler, leading the Crusaders with his .361 average.

• Provided by Jon L. Hendricks

After starting the season 3-for-18, Brent Jones turned things around with a big series at UNC-Wilmington. 

Valparaiso's Brent Jones has persevered through injuries during his college baseball career.

• Provided, Jon L. Hendricks

Brent Jones mug

• Provided, Aran Kessler

When the Crusaders gather in their dugout Saturday, itching to take their home field for the first time, Brent Jones will be ready.

Finally healthy and in a groove, the fifth-year senior enters Valparaiso University’s home opener, a doubleheader against Butler, leading the Crusaders with his .361 average.

For Jones, it has been a long wait.

After two superb seasons at Iowa Central Community College, a little over an hour from his hometown of Ankeny, Jones got off to a hot start at Valparaiso only to be set back by injuries.

Those injuries appear firmly in the rearview mirror as Jones enters Valparaiso’s first home series of the year on a tear for a team that appears to be turning the corner, as well. Following a 2-11 start, the Crusaders (4-12) won their last series, taking two of three against Northern Illinois.

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“Being my last year of baseball in general, (it's about) taking every game, enjoy it, enjoy the moment, enjoy my teammates and enjoy my coaching staff,” Jones said. “Having this be my last season, going out there and just proving, not only to myself but just the people in my life, that I am deserving to be a Division I baseball player.”

Jones was exactly the kind of junior college player Crusaders coach Brian Schmack seeks.

He was versatile, able to help in the infield and outfield. He had a solid left-handed bat.

Most important, Jones had success at the junior college level, with a .344 average, six homers, 45 runs and 33 RBIs as a sophomore. Given that there isn’t much time to develop junior college players in two years, that record was important to Schmack. He wanted a player who could help out right away.

Jones found Valparaiso an easy fit. Growing up in a suburb of Des Moines, going to college in a town near Chicago worked fine for him. It didn’t hurt that he is a Cubs fan.

All was going well and Jones was living up to expectations the fall of his junior season when a headfirst slide into second base got the best of him. Jones didn’t think it was that bad at first. He knew something wasn’t right, but in all of his years playing baseball, basketball and football, he had never experienced a serious injury and didn’t expect this slide to turn into anything major.

As Schmack put it, Jones’ right shoulder “went out the back of his back essentially.” As Jones explained, he tore his rotator cuff, labrum and capsule. As his doctor told him, some of those injuries might have been there for years, inflamed to the point of no return by one slide.

The injury made it difficult to swing a bat.

“Every time I would swing, it would come out,” Jones said. “It wasn’t like agonizing on-the-ground pain, but just every time, my shoulder just couldn’t stay in place.”

He had surgery and received a medical red-shirt for his junior year, then the injury carried into his senior (red-shirt junior) year, when he batted just .182. Schmack said he wanted to support Jones in his comeback, but it was hard to play someone who wasn’t producing.

“He was definitely a shell of himself,” Schmack said. “I know he may have been confident, but you could tell his swing had changed and he couldn’t throw as well.”

A broken ankle sidelined him for good, and, according to Jones, might have been a “blessing in disguise.” For a month or two, Jones sat, resting his ankle and shoulder. When Jones returned this past fall, Schmack said he saw the hitter he had brought to Valparaiso in the first place.

“He looks kind of like the guy we had the first year,” Schmack said. “He is more confident now, which is great, and that’s all baseball is, so to have him confident and more aggressive and healthy and putting up the numbers and hitting the ball the way that we saw him early on is really refreshing.”

It didn’t happen right away.

Jones started the 2019 season 3-of-18 from the plate.

Just before Valparaiso opened up a series at UNC-Wilmington, Schmack went up to Jones with a simple message: Be the hammer, not the nail.

“That’s kind of the approach,” Jones said. “Going in the box, not striking out, not giving away at-bats, not giving away swings, but just going in there with a fighting mentality that I’m going to beat the pitcher.”

Down 8-6 in the top of the seventh of the first game of a doubleheader, Jones delivered a game-tying single. In the second game, he delivered an RBI double to put the Crusaders ahead 3-1. The next day, he delivered a two-RBI single to help Valparaiso build an early lead and a sacrifice fly to tie the score at 4. Against No. 24 South Carolina, Jones delivered a go-ahead RBI single in one game and a homer “that’s still traveling,” per Schmack, in another game.

“It’s been good to have him back in that form because he deserves to be confident,” Schmack said. “Going back to the nail, there’s no reason he should be the nail for as hard as he’s worked, so it’s time to be that hammer and finish out that way.”

Home opener

Butler at Valparaiso

When: Noon Saturday.

Where: Emory G. Bauer Field.

Radio: WVUR-FM (95.1).

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Alabama baseball: high-powered offense leads Crimson Tide to sweep of Valparaiso

Alabama baseball  won its second series of the season with a sweep of Valparaiso. The No. 17 Crimson Tide run-ruled the Beacons in every game by scores of 14-2, 13-3 and 11-1.

The No. 17 Crimson Tide  (8-0) stayed undefeated thanks to its red-hot offense. Every member of the lineup contributed to the runs explosion, as eight of the Tide's nine starters recorded a hit Friday, and seven did so on Saturday. T.J. McCants and Gage Miller increased their active hit streaks to eight and seven games, respectively, while Ian Petrutz and Coleman Mizell recorded their first career home runs in crimson.

CRIMSON TIDE WIN FIRST SERIES: Alabama baseball wins season opener, sweeps series against Manhattan in Rob Vaughn's debut

ALABAMA LOSES TOP PLAYER: Alabama baseball wins two games but loses a player to injury for the season

"We've talked every game about trying to be a better version of ourselves," coach Rob Vaughn said. "Play cleaner, play better, be more efficient with what we're doing, and I thought we did that all weekend."

Here are three takeaways from  Alabama 's (8-0) series sweep against Valparaiso (2-5):

Gage Miller leads Alabama baseball's dominant offense

Alabama third baseman Gage Miller continued his fabulous start to the season this weekend, hitting a home run in every game of the series.

On Friday, Miller propelled the Crimson Tide to an early 6-0 lead over the Beacons in the bottom of the second inning with a three-run home run. He tied for the team lead in home runs with TJ McCants at three and finished the first game 2-for-4 at the plate with five RBIs.

The weekend featured more of the same for Miller. He hit a solo home run in his first at-bat in the bottom of the first inning while adding two more RBIs through the rest of the game. His third home run in as many days came in the bottom of the second inning on Sunday with a two-run blast into left field.

Against Valparaiso, Miller went 7-for-13 at the plate with three home runs and 10 RBIs. He also had two put-outs and five assists from third base.

Alabama baseball's offense scores early and often

Alabama was able to score runs in bunches against the Beacons, something that coach Rob Vaughn has emphasized as an area the team needed to improve upon.

"I thought that was the first game this year where our offense really did what it is capable of doing. It was relentless at-bats after the first inning, I thought it was electric and hopefully that keeps up," Vaughn said.

The Crimson Tide scored six runs in the second inning and four in the fourth on Friday as they took a 10-2 lead into the fifth. A pair of two-run innings in the fifth and sixth gave Alabama the lead they needed to finish the game in seven. On Saturday, Alabama hit four home runs and scored seven in the first inning before adding five runs in the third to make it 12-3 through three innings.

Sunday's offense was more steady than explosive. Alabama scored two in each of the first three innings before adding one in the fourth and another pair in the sixth. With a 9-1 lead in the bottom of the seventh, McCants ended the game with a two-run home run to mercy-rule the Beacons for a third straight game.

Alabama's bullpen surrenders zero runs

The season-ending injury to sophomore Riley Quick forced the Crimson Tide to make an early adjustment to their starting rotation this weekend. Aidan Moza moved into Quick's spot as the Saturday starter, while senior Lousiville transfer Greg Farone stepped up on Sunday. Ben Hess remained the Friday starter.

Interestingly, every run scored by Valparaiso in the series came with one of the three starters on the mound. The Beacons failed to score when hitting against the Tide's bullpen, a trend that Vaughn hopes will continue.

"The arms have had so much success, sometimes you forget it's different when there's traffic on the bases," Vaughn said. "It's good for them to get in that situation and have to pitch through it and compete their way through it."

Tyler Fay and Sam Mitchell relieved Hess for three innings on Friday, while Coulson Buchanan and Jackson Baker did the same for Moza on Saturday. Since the offense scored enough for back-to-back mercy rules, the relievers weren't asked for much and only had to pitch six innings across the first two games.

Sunday's slower-scoring affair allowed Alabama to look deeper into its pen. Austin Morris, Braylon Myers and Texas transfer Pierce George combined for five strikeouts.

What's next for Alabama baseball?

Alabama will play on the road for the first time this season on Tuesday, Feb. 27 when it travels to Birmingham to take on the UAB Blazers at 6 p.m. CT. The Tide will then head to Frisco, Texas, for a weekend at the Frisco Classic, where they will face Indiana (March 1, 6 p.m. CT), Arizona (March 2, 4 p.m. CT) and Dallas Baptist (March 3, 4 p.m. CT).

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