Edward Waters baseball eyes 'championship culture' after Black College World Series win

For Keilin Washington, the past week was an answered prayer.

"This whole season," the Edward Waters University senior said, "I've been praying that we could make history our last year."

History is now official for Washington and his teammates, after Edward Waters won last week's Black College World Series for baseball in Montgomery, Ala.

One week ago, the Tigers defeated Kentucky State for a title that marks a transition point in the university's move from the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics to NCAA Division II.

The Tigers and head baseball coach Reginald Johnson II, leader of the baseball program since 2012, are eyeing what they hope will become a bright future on the diamond for years to come.

"It shows that all the hard work that we put in, those [early morning] practices, they've paid off," Johnson said. "We wanted to change the narrative and bring a championship culture to this institution."

For Johnson, the Tigers' effort in Alabama is an indication of the progress they've made, and the success that may be still to come in the future.

"They came together," Johnson said, "and they found a way to get it done at the end."

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Building a program

Edward Waters hasn't always fared so well in baseball.

When Johnson took the job 11 seasons ago, he was taking over a program in transition, with limited resources and emerging from a period of turbulence for the college. He credits the administration under president A. Zachary Faison Jr. and athletic director Paul Bryant with helping the Tigers gain momentum.

"We started off with 18 players and one [style of] uniform, to now having 65 players on junior varsity and varsity, four or five uniforms," Johnson said. "The support from the administration, from the families, the city of Jacksonville, it's a proud moment to look back and see how this has grown year by year."

Their Black College World Series triumph not only brought home a trophy to Jacksonville, but also clinched an above-.500 season for the Tigers for the first time since 2018.

Piece by piece, for Johnson, the picture is taking shape.

The Tigers' roster includes about a dozen players from the Jacksonville area, including former Trinity Christian outfielder Washington, named Most Outstanding Player of the tournament.

Washington said Edward Waters felt a sense of "unfinished business" from the 2021 Black College World Series. EWU qualified for that tournament but lost to Bluefield State and Savannah State in the double-elimination competition, ending the year at 15-26.

Even this year, Edward Waters survived its share of ups and downs. Consistency, Johnson said, was the biggest challenge. They endured a seven-game losing streak in February, dropping to 2-9 at one stage, and exited the Continental Athletic Conference tournament in painful close losses to Fisher and Iowa Wesleyan.

But Washington said the team's sense of unity kept Tigers baseball on track.

"When the worst parts came up, that's when our teammates picked each other up," he said.

Once the schedule led them to Montgomery for the Black College World Series, EWU's confidence was already on the rise.

The Tigers had lost four of five regular-season meetings with Florida Memorial, but when the two faced off in the semifinal, Edward Waters came out on top, 9-8. Then came Kentucky State in the final, and a 3-2 victory.

"I felt like there was no stopping us," Washington said.

Turning the corner

Since the victory in Alabama, the world has been a little different for Johnson and the Tigers.

They've drawn a surge of media attention, even throwing out the ceremonial first pitch at a Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp game against the Durham Bulls at 121 Financial Ballpark.

But Johnson is focusing on the long term.

Building the school's visibility, Johnson said, will be a key as Edward Waters takes the next step in its transition into NCAA Division II and the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

This year, the Tigers played a split schedule that included teams from multiple levels, including the NAIA, in which EWU competed for decades. Playing Division II baseball on a full-scale schedule, for Johnson, is "a whole other ballgame."

"There's very minimal margin for error when you're playing [Division II] teams like Florida Tech, Flagler, Albany State, Savannah State," Johnson said. "If you make a mistake, they're going to capitalize. If your pitcher misses a spot, ball's leaving the ballpark."

As elsewhere, the recruiting game is a battle. Johnson estimates that EWU is competing with roughly 30 to 40 baseball-playing institutions within a drive of three to four hours — ranging from Division I colleges like Jacksonville University and the University of North Florida to lower-division NCAA schools to NAIA and junior college programs.

In earlier years, that interest was often sparse. But now, EWU is beginning to establish itself as a viable destination for high school recruits as well as college transfers. Outfielder John Dominguez of Punta Gorda, for example, transferred to the Tigers from NCAA Division I Mississippi Valley State.

"I'm happy that people are now choosing Edward Waters as a first choice," Johnson said.

Johnson also expressed optimism for the university's plans for baseball facility upgrades, following EWU's recently-opened community athletic field used for football and its new floor installation at the Adams-Jenkins Sports and Music Complex. The Tigers play at J.P. Small Memorial Stadium in the Durkeeville neighborhood, a center for Jacksonville's baseball world for nearly a century.

In the future years, Johnson said he's planning for Edward Waters to battle for conference championships in the SIAC, maybe eventually challenging the nation's best in Division II.

If that day comes, EWU may look back at the spring of 2022 as a milestone along the path.

"You're here to win," Johnson said. "The day of just being OK with complacency is gone."

Clayton Freeman covers high school sports and more for the Florida Times-Union. Follow him on Twitter at @CFreemanJAX.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Reginald Johnson, Edward Waters University baseball seek championship culture