BIRMINGHAM, Ala. &045; This is not good.

Alcorn State’s Braves can think of a million different ways to start out the Southwestern Athletic Conference tournament than their 19-11 loss Thursday. The Tigers jumped all over four Alcorn pitchers and pounded out 21 hits to advance to today’s semifinal game against Mississippi Valley.

The Braves, with weekend starter Baron K. Short likely unavailable after a relief appearance Thursday, will shuffle their deck a bit to play the loser of the Jackson State-Prairie View A&M game at 9 a.m. today in an elimination contest.

A win would put the Braves playing again at 7:30 p.m.

&uot;We’ll have a team meeting, and we’ll see who’s arm is the strongest,&uot; Alcorn head coach Willie &uot;Rat&uot; McGowan said. &uot;We’ll make a decision. Our closer Matt Chatwin &045; I don’t want to start him, but he’s been asking for the ball. I just might start him. He’s got experience, and that’s what we need. I’m not throwing anybody who doesn’t have the experience in these games over here.&uot;

That was the case with starter Patrick Long, who had moved up to the No. 1 weekend starter later in the year. The senior got into the fifth with little trouble and the Braves trailing 4-3, but the Tigers broke out at the plate in a big way with eight runs for a 12-3 lead.

An inning and two pitchers later, the Braves (22-17-1) were staring at a thinning pitching staff and a double-digit deficit.

&uot;We generate 11 runs and 13 hits, but they generated a lot of runs because my pitchers fell apart,&uot; McGowan said. &uot;We got behind in the count, couldn’t get the ball over, and that hurt us. We had four balks.&uot;

The Tigers chased Long out of the game in that fifth after the senior right-hander recorded one out. David Arrendendo doubled down the left-field line to score Alfonso Reyna and Corey Alexander, and McGowan yanked Long at that point for freshman Baron K. Short.

But Short couldn’t get an out and had all sorts of trouble before being pulled.

The Tigers put up four more in the sixth to lead 16-4 after six.