Heart of the Plate

For Jason Richman, the baseball mound was an oasis; his teammates turned out to be family.

Richman, a sophomore reliever at Georgia Southern, was in Charleston, South Carolina, for the Southern Conference tournament when he learned that his mother, Natalie, died earlier that day at his family’s home in Alpharetta, Georgia. She was 47.

Rather than return home, Richman decided to stay with his Eagle teammates. Maintaining his focus despite his personal loss, Richman was eventually named the tournament’s most outstanding player for pitching Georgia Southern to the conference championship and a berth in the NCAA tournament, where they would play in the Tallahassee Regional featuring Florida State, Alabama and Kennesaw State.

Only Richman’s coaches and teammates originally knew about the tragedy. Six times coach Rodney Hennon put him into a game, the last one a decisive relief appearance in the conference finals, when Richman stopped Samford long enough for his teammates to win 4-3 in the bottom of the ninth.

“One of the most amazing performances I’ve ever seen,” Hennon said. Assistant coach B.J. Green originally received the call from Richman’s dad, Steven, after the team lost its opening game to Appalachian State. Green and Hennon found Richman, accompanied him to a hotel room and told him that he needed to call his father because of “a family emergency.”

A short time later, the team was called together and told the news. Players hugged Richman and everyone cried together.

Hennon asked Richman if he wanted to go home, but Richman and his father agreed the best thing for him would be to keep playing.

“He’s the glue that holds this team together,” reliever Matt McCall said. “It was huge of him to stick around and fight through that tough situation.”

He took the mound the next day and pitched 1 1/3 innings. “Perhaps the best thing for him was that sense of normalcy,” Hennon said. “That probably helped him get through what he was dealing with.”

In all, Richman, the Division I leader in appearances, pitched a tournament-record six times. He pitched 13 1/3 innings and allowed just one earned run.

“He pitched with his heart,” Jackson said. “You could tell how badly he wanted it.” The entire team would travel from Statesboro to attend the funeral services for Richman’s mother, who was a principal at Sweet Apple Elementary School in Roswell, Georgia. No less than 300 other people were also there to say goodbye and pay their respects.

Still thinking about his teammates, Richman sent them all texts after the service thanking them for being there.

“He’s the heart and soul of this team,” Green said.

Once in Tallahassee, Sam Howard would throw a complete game shutout to lead No. 4 seed Georgia Southern to a 7-0 shutout of No. 1 seed Florida State.

The win for Georgia Southern was their first in regional play since a 6-2 win over Elon in the Clemson Regional in 2002 and the third for Rodney Hennon as the Eagles’ skipper. With the win, the Eagles reached the 40-win plateau for the 10th time in school history and the third time under Hennon.

The shutout was the fifth on the season for the Eagles and the fourth on the season for Howard. The complete game was Howard’s first of his career. Florida State fell to 43-16 and was shut out for only the second time all season.

Eventually, No. 2 seed Alabama eliminated Georgia Southern with a 6-0 victory in game five of the Tallahassee Regional.

The Eagles finished the 2014 campaign 40-23, their most wins since 2009, won the Southern Conference Tournament for the sixth and final time, and won a game in postseason play for the first time 2002.