By Hunt Palmer
(The quotes in this story come from Little Rock head coach Chris Curry’s interview with Matt Moscona on Tuesday’s After Further Review)
As injuries and losses piled up for Little Rock this season, head coach Chris Curry searched for answers.
His team was at one point without six everyday position players and its closer. A team that won the Ohio Valley Conference a season ago and was picked second in the league in the preseason was in danger of missing the conference tournament altogether.
He drew on his past as an SEC player at Mississippi State when an archrival lived on the motto that would eventually become the title of a documentary– “Hold the Rope”.
“Being a ‘90s guy and having watched as a kid Warren Morris hit the home run and playing against Brad Cresse and (Ryan) Theriot and (Blair) Barbier and (Kurt) Ainsworth and (Trey) Hodges and knowing Coach Bertman and you know, ‘Hold on to the Rope’.” Curry told Matt Moscona on After Further Review. “So, I just adopted that saying to my guys when it started getting tough there at the end of the season.”
The Trojans lost 13 of 14 games to finish the season but qualified eighth for the Ohio Valley Tournament.
“The message was just get to the (conference) tournament,” Curry said. “It’s a new season. That felt like a million pounds lifted off our shoulders when we finally made it through the regular season. We got to the tournament. We were just playing carefree. No pressure.”
Little Rock won its first game on Wednesday and then came back hours later to win a second. After a thriller of an extra inning win over Eastern Illinois on Thursday, the Trojans started to believe. They beat Lindenwood on Friday and Eastern Illinois again on Saturday to finish the four-day, five-game gauntlet and improbably win the tournament to qualify for NCAA play.
They held the rope.
“The committee was talking about making it very regional, and every outlet had us going to Fayetteville,” Curry said. “In our minds, we were kind of gong to Fayetteville, and then it pops up, and wow, Baton Rouge. Immediately you saw our team’s reaction. That was genuine, and I think that came from a place of being able to play on one of the biggest stages in all of college baseball and just an opportunity.”
That stage features a statue of legendary head coach Skip Bertman just feet from the gate the Trojans will enter on Friday. Seven national title flags fly above it, five courtesy of Bertman.
When Curry reminds his players one more time about the motto they adopted more than a month ago, they can put a face to it.
“We had no clue where we were going for a regional 10 days ago,” Curry said. “Seven weeks ago, we had no clue that we were to a regional. And (the players) are young, so they didn’t really have any idea who it was really from. And then, lo and behold, we show up in the Baton Rouge Regional where ‘Hold on to the Rope’ was born, and I think that’s kind of cool.”
