The FAMU baseball team defeated conference foe Texas Southern 9-8 to sweep its final three game home series on Saturday. The victory helped the Rattlers clinch the third seed in next week's SWAC championship tournament.
The game was a nail bitter, a marathon test of wills, taking 16 innings and nearly four hours to complete.,
The Rattlers won after a slider from Texas Southern reliever Mason Garcia skittered in the dirt, and catcher Isaiah Martinez lunged, but the ball bounced off his chest protector, skittering toward the Rattlers’ dugout. With FAMU;s Josue Figueroa, already in motion, he slid across home plate, his hand slapping the dish a full second before the frantic tag attempt arrived.
“That,” said head coach Jamey Shouppe, his voice hoarse and his shirt soaked through, “is a testament to the heart of this team. They just refused to quit. Every time we got knocked down, we found a way to get a hand back on the ledge and pull ourselves up.”
For the first two innings, the ledge seemed impossibly far away. Starter Jesus Campa was roughed up for four runs in the second, a deficit that ballooned to 8-4 by the ninth. For six innings, the Texas Southern bullpen had muzzled the Rattlers’ bats, turning a raucous home crowd anxious.
But in the seventh, a flicker. A walk, two singles, and up stepped Jackson McKenzie with the bases loaded. On a 1-2 count, he turned on a fastball, sending a screaming double to the gap in left-center. Three runs scored. The score was 8-5. The belief, dormant for hours, roared back to life.
“That was the spark,” McKenzie said. “We looked at each other in the dugout and said, ‘It’s not over. We’re coming back.’ From that moment on, it was just one guy after another passing the baton.”
The ninth inning was a masterclass in gritty, two-out offense. A hit-by-pitch, a walk, a clutch RBI single from Jordan Brown. Then, with the tying run on third, senior captain Will Brown fought off three two-strike pitches before lacing a single to right, plating two and sending the game into extra innings, tied 8-8.
What followed was a war of attrition. Six combined relievers from both sides traded zeroes for six more frames, navigating traffic and fatigue. FAMU’s bullpen, particularly the trio of Luis Rodriguez, Ethan Jenkins, and eventual winner Sebastian Lopez, stranded eight Texas Southern runners in extra innings, bending but never breaking.
“Our guys were running on fumes and guts,” Shouppe said. “They were throwing pitches on pure heart.”
That heart finally found its reward in the 16th. A leadoff walk, a sacrifice bunt, and an intentional walk to load the bases set the stage for Figueroa’s fateful dash home on Garcia’s wild pitch.
The victory, improving FAMU to 27-22, was more than a sweep. It was a statement—a four-hour, 16-inning testament to resilience that will echo in the program’s lore long after the season ends.
While the baseball team was scripting its marathon drama in Tallahassee, the FAMU softball team’s historic 2026 campaign came to a close 150 miles away in Gainesville. The Rattlers, making their first NCAA Regional appearance as a member of the SWAC and the 14th in program history, fell 6-0 to Texas State in the elimination round.
Despite the final score, the Rattlers showcased the same tenacity that has defined their season. They battled Sun Belt powerhouse Texas State pitch-for-pitch for much of the game, working deep counts and putting the tying run at the plate in the seventh inning before ultimately succumbing.
“The scoreboard doesn’t reflect the fight in these young women,” said head coach Brittany Bealle. “To get here, to compete on this stage, and to leave everything on the field… they set a new standard for FAMU softball. This isn’t an end; it’s a foundation.”
On a Saturday that stretched from afternoon deep into the evening, the message from FAMU athletics was unmistakable: whether in a gut-wrenching, extra-inning thriller or on the national stage, Rattlers fight. And they fight until the very last out.