Chipola Baseball & Softball regular seasons coming to a close

Four regular season games are all that is left for the Chipola baseball and softball teams in 2022. Each team is poised to make runs at the state and national championships coming up next month.

BASEBALL

• Current Record
  • Overall: 36-11-1
  • Panhandle Conference: 15-5
• Current Rankings
  • NJCAA: 3rd
  • FCSAA: 1st

Coach Jeff Johnson's squad has already captured a share of the Panhandle Conference title and the #1 seed from the conference by virtue of winning the season series with Tallahassee Community College. Currently, the Indians are four games ahead of the Eagles with four games left to play and will clinch the conference title outright with one more win or a Tallahassee loss.

After dropping the first game of a four games series to Northwest Florida back on April 7, the Indians have won seven consecutive games. The Indians battled back to take the remaining three games from the Raiders to help distance themselves in the league standings.

Postponements due to weather forced the Indians to play eight games in ten days. After going 3-1 against the Raiders on April 7-9, Chipola took down Tallahassee in a pair of nine inning games on April 11 and 13 followed by two more nine inning wins over Pensacola on April 15 and 16.

The Indians will close out the regular season with a pair of nine inning games on Friday and Saturday of this week against Gulf Coast. The Commodores, currently in fourth place in the conference at 10-12, need the wins to keep their hopes alive of being the #2 seed from the Panhandle. A loss to the Indians or a Tallahassee win in their series with Northwest Florida would eliminate the Commodores.

Chipola will close out the regular season with Northwest Florida on Monday, April 25, and Wednesday, April 27. The Raiders are also hoping to be the #2 seed from the conference but appear to have the toughest schedule of the teams remaining in contention. Along with playing the conference-leading Indians to round out the regular season, the Raiders face the current second place team, Tallahassee, this weekend. The Eagles, 11-9 in conference play, have a one game advantage over the third place Raiders (10-10) and would claim the #2 seed with a pair of wins. 

As winners of the Panhandle Conference, Chipola will host the first round of the FCSAA/Region VIII Tournament on May 6-7 at Jeff Johnson Field. In a new format for the tournament thie season, conference champions will host runners-up from other conferences in a two-out-of-three series. The Indians will face the runner-up from the Mid-Florida Conference. The four winners from each of the first round series will play in a double elimination tournament in Lakeland, Florida on May 12-15, to determine Region VIII's entry into the JUCO World Series in Grand Junction, Colorado, which begins on May 28.

SOFTBALL

• Current Record
  • Overall: 36-8
  • Panhandle Conference: 10-6
• Current Rankings
  • NJCAA: 13th
  • FCSAA: 3rd

Although the Lady Indians have lost their last three games, they are currently in a tie atop the Panhandle Conference standings with Pensacola and Northwest Florida. Chipola takes on the Raiders in a pair of doubleheaders on Saturday and Monday while the Pirates face Tallahassee in four games.

Coach Kelly Brookins' Lady Indians can capture at least a share of the championship with a sweep of the Raiders. Chipola can win the title outright by winning three or four against the Raiders but would need Pensacola to win one less game.

Unless there is a tie atop the standings at the end of the season, the second through fourth place teams will compete for the runner-up spot from the conference. In the event of a two-way tie for first, both teams will advance to the FCSAA State Tournament with the conference champion being the winner of the head-to-head matchups between the two teams. If there is an outright champion, the third place team will host the fourth place team on Wednesday, April 27, with the winner traveling to the second place team the next day. The second place team will need to defeat the 3rd/4th winner once to be the conference runner-up and move on to the FCSAA Tournament. The 3rd/4th winner will need to defeat the 2nd place team twice in order to advance.

The two teams advancing from the Panhandle will play in the FCSAA Tournament on May 6-9 in Longwood, Florida, where they will vie for one of Region VIII's two bids to the NJCAA Softball Tournament to be held in Yuma, Arizona on May 24-28.