No Place Like Home: UTRGV set to host Southland Tourney

3 weeks ago 50

Bryan Ramos

EDINBURG — UTRGV shattered its attendance record with 73,165 fans and counting crossing the gates of UTRGV Baseball Stadium in Edinburg this season.

The Vaqueros rewarded them by winning a share of the Southland Conference regular season championship in their first year competing in the conference. The regular season title is UTRGV’s first since 2019 and third conference championship during the past 70 years.

Now, UTRGV is set to host Southland Conference Tournament bracket play from today through Sunday at UTRGV Baseball Stadium in Edinburg.

“When you’re new to something for the first time, you really want to make a big impression,” head coach Derek Matlock said about Year 1 in the Southland. “They picked us maybe fourth or fifth in the preseason, and, you know, that kind of put a little chip on our shoulder, like, ‘Wait, wait, wait.’ You always want to make a good impression, and after going through it and meeting the coaches and seeing the talent, we’re very honored to be in this conference, and we’re very honored with this format to get to bring the conference to our home stadium for our fans and our players.”

The Vaqueros will welcome three Southland opponents for double-elimination-style bracket play at UTRGV Baseball Stadium for six guaranteed games and possibly seven.

2025 Southland Baseball Tournament – Edinburg Bracket.

The winner of the SLC Tournament’s Edinburg bracket earns a spot in next week’s Southland Conference Tournament championship, which will be a three-game series against the winner of bracket play in Hammond, Louisiana, hosted by top-seeded Southeastern Louisiana.

The winner of the SLC Tournament championship series earns an automatic bid to the NCAA baseball tournament.

UTRGV (34-16) opens Southland tourney play as the No. 2 seed and will face rival and No. 7 seed Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (20-29) at 6 p.m. today in the opening round. No. 3 Lamar and No. 6 Houston Christian are scheduled to get things started at 1 p.m. today.

“The teams that are coming in here, they’re going to have to play us and play (against) the crowd, too,” graduate student, shortstop and Edinburg Vela alumnus Isaac Lopez said. “It’s going to be pretty cool and hopefully we can get a lot of people to come out and support us. We’re going to put on a show for them, and they’re going to have a lot of fun. The stakes are going to be higher this time around, so it’ll be cool to see the stadium packed.”

Single-session tickets and all-tournament passes are for sale at UTRGVTickets.com.

BRINGING GOLD TO THE VALLEY

UTRGV grinded its way to the Southland Conference championship by going 34-16 overall and 22-8 in league play. The Vaqueros now enter the SLC tournament as winners of eight of their past nine.

“It’s an old, veteran team with a lot of guys that care about doing something for the Valley and being the Valley boys, and they take pride in that,” Matlock said. “I think it’s a big piece to what’s going on with this success.”

Several Vaqueros were recognized Wednesday as UTRGV received a league-high 13 all-conference honors, including Southland Conference player of the year Armani Raygoza and Southland Conference newcomer of the year Victor Loa, a Los Fresnos alumnus. Four of the five spots on the Southland Conference all-defensive team went to Vaqueros in catcher Steven Lancia, second baseman Thomas Williams, Lopez and third baseman Easton Moomau.

“They’ve built something special,” Lancia said about Matlock and the UTRGV coaching staff. “I feel like you see a lot of the teams around the country and conference, a lot of guys are leaving to go to bigger schools or for more money, but here I feel like they’ve built something where people want to show up, and when they do show up, they stay for a reason.”

UTRGV has gotten it done at the plate, on the mound and on the defensive side of things. The Vaqueros finished the regular season ranked No. 1 in the Southland Conference in hitting with a .308 batting average, No. 1 in defense with a .980 fielding percentage, and No. 5 in pitching with a 4.85 ERA.

The Vaqueros rank No. 13 nationally in fielding percentage.

“I just think we play with a lot of heart on the defensive side of the ball. We have a ton of playmakers and we just love having fun, diving around the field,” Lopez said.

INSIDE THE EDINBURG BRACKET

The Southland Conference’s top two teams at the end of the regular season are rewarded with hosting bracket play on the opening weekend of the SLC Tournament.

Top-seeded Southeastern gets to host an all-Louisiana Hammond bracket featuring No. 4 Northwestern State, No. 5 McNeese and No. 8 New Orleans.

Taking the field in an all-Texas Edinburg bracket at UTRGV Baseball Stadium will be the No. 2 seed Vaqueros, No. 3 Lamar (40-15), No. 6 Houston Christian (27–23) and No. 7 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (20-29).

UTRGV went 6-3 in SLC play against the three Texas teams they’ll possibly be facing this weekend. The Vaqueros swept Lamar, won their series 2-1 against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and lost their series 2-1 against Houston Christian.

The winners of the brackets will face off in the SLC Tournament championship series May 22-24, with the highest remaining seed playing host.

“You can’t draw it up any better, bringing this thing in here and filling this thing up, trying to get people behind us,” Matlock said. “Now, let’s go play like we’re capable of playing. Winning that thing in front of our people would be amazing, we just gotta play like we can play. It’s going to be a fight, but we can do it.”