After striking out Houston’s Dylan Post with a nasty slider that sent Tulane to the American Athletic Conference championship game, freshman closer Michael Fowler said the Green Wave had the goods to complete one of the most unlikely runs in tournament history.
If the seventh-seeded Wave (18-40) beats top seed East Carolina (45-16) on Sunday in Clearwater, Florida (11 a.m. Central; ESPNews), it will reach a regional for the first time since 2016 and wipe away almost everything that happened in a nightmarish year with the most losses in school history.
“We’ve had our ups and downs throughout the year, and now we just have a chance to win one more game and make a regional,” Fowler said. “This is our shot. Let’s take it while we have the opportunity. Why not us?
Fowler’s final punchout—his sixth in 2 1/3 innings of work—likely had Tulane fans pinching themselves about the possibility. Despite dropping seven consecutive series at the end of the regular season, the Wave has scored 41 runs through four tournament games and received clutch pitching when it needed it the most.
Saturday night’s 11-8 win against No. 2 seed Houston (36-23), which came after a defeat to the Cougars by the exact same score earlier in the day, fit the pattern.
Red-hot sophomore Teo Banks homered in the first and hit a huge three-run blast high over the left field wall in the seventh, giving him seven long balls in his past eight games. Seven consecutive batters reached base during a five-run third as Tulane went ahead 6-1 and held that lead the rest of the way despite numerous anxious moments.
Fowler made sure it stood up. Entering after Michael Lombardi allowed a three-run homer that closed the gap to 9-7, he surrendered a sacrifice fly as Houston pulled within one but never lost his composure. Given two insurance runs in the eighth, he struck out the side in the bottom half. When back-to-back one-out singles put the tying run at the plate in the ninth, he coaxed a lazy fly ball on the next pitch before fanning Post.
“Fowler was just so good out of the pen,” Houston coach Todd Whitting said after being equally impressed by Chandler Welch’s long relief performance in the Wave’s 10-8 win against the Cougars four days earlier. “ When you throw 92, 93 (miles per hour) and then have a 12 to 6 breaker like that, you’re tough to hit.”
Instead of dwelling on an error-filled defeat earlier in the day, Tulane came out focused. Banks gave the Wave an immediate lead, and right field Jake LaPrairie atoned for two miscues in the first game with a leaping catch for the first out.
“I kind of got on him (LaPrairie) a little bit asking him if he was carrying baggage from the game before, and he assured me he wasn’t,” Uhlman said. “Sometimes you don’t get clutch hits, but you always can impact the game with your glove, and he did that.”
Banks, who went 8 for 18 with nine RBIs and two home runs in the AAC tournament last year, is 8 for 17 with 10 RBIs and three homers this time. He drove in a career-best six on Saturday night, including the pivotal three-run bomb off an elevated slider.
“It may have been one of the best swings of the year from Teo,” Uhlman said. “He’s had a lot of good swings, but he did a really nice job on that breaking ball not trying to do too much. He let the elevation and his bat speed work for him.”
Said Banks: “We all have that thing we’re looking for now, and that’s to win this tournament. It’s easier to play when you’re all on the same page. We came in here looking for a new season and put the past in the past.”
If Tulane beats East Carolina, it will have the worst record for any regional team since Youngstown State made it with a 16-36 record in 2014, and not one player will be bothered by it. The Wave nearly won its series at East Carolina, and the Pirates have played an extra game in Clearwater after losing their opener to South Florida and battling back through the losers’ bracket.
“We’ve got bodies that are available for sure,” Uhlman said. “Guys are going to have to do some special things and just throw strikes, and we need to play clean defense, score early and score often and if we get the lead, we need to extend the lead. We’re going to need all hands on deck.”
One of those hands is Dylan Carmouche, who threw a complete-game, eight-inning victory against Memphis on Thursday. Operating on one more day’s rest last year, he started and threw three shutout innings in the semifinal round against East Carolina before his defense betrayed him in the fourth.
“He’s going to fight me if he’s not given an opportunity,” Uhlman said. “He recovers pretty good, and he’ll be champing at the bit wanting to get the ball. I’d imagine he’ll be available for sure.”