By Joel Weckerly, Sports Editor

The Wildcat baseball team rolled into Kingsville Thursday afternoon with the attitude that it has nothing to lose.

Although ACU is already statistically eliminated from qualifying for the South Central Region Tournament May 13-15, it would still like to bring home a LSC crown.

“Everybody’s excited to play,” senior shortstop Ryan Barker said from Kingsville Thursday night. “We’ve got nothing to lose. It’s still a big accomplishment to win the conference, and it would be nice to have a ‘2004 Conference Champs’ banner to put up on our outfield wall.”

The Wildcats face East Central (Okla.), the No. 1 seed from the LSC North, in Game 1 of the double-elimination tournament 2 p.m. Friday.

The last time ACU faced ECO was March 25, 2003, in a 3-1 loss.

“We don’t really know a whole lot about them; just that they’re the top team in the North.”

ACU practiced for about an hour Thursday evening, and Barker said the temperature was humid with a chance of rain Friday.

“We’re not too worried about the conditions,” he said. “We just want to end this season on a good note. We probably won’t make regionals, but you never really know what can happen.”