COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) - Texas A&M veteran Hayden Schott, along with approximately five other teammates, sat in various parts of the Aggie dugout, staring blankly at the Blue Bell Park field after they were swept by Missouri in a 10-1 series finale loss.

The Tigers (16-35, 3-24) had long left the field after exchanging high fives and shouts for their first conference series win of the season. Heading into the three-game weekend, Missouri had not won a Southeastern Conference game in 24 previous attempts.

After hosting what should be its final game of the season, Blue Bell Park was quickly transformed into a staging area for kids to run the bases, with posts and ropes guiding the line to home plate, around the bases and back up into the stands.

The world around those six players had already moved on, but they sat hoping to be frozen in time for just a few more minutes. Most who sat in that daze have a future in professional baseball after this Aggie season ends. Their career at Blue Bell Park ends in bitter disappointment.

“It’s hard to put it into words,” Schott said. “I just feel like, whenever you’re [at Blue Bell Park], you feel like you’re part of something bigger. And, when you feel that you try to give your heart and soul every minute. And when you feel like you’ve failed — not the fans, obviously you feel like you failed the fans — but when you feel like you failed people, whether it’s other players the staff — no one will ever be able to understand what that feels like.”

Probability says those Aggie players (27-23, 10-17) were grieving the loss of a season that most expected would end in a return trip to the College World Series, or even the national championship that escaped their grasp a season prior. However, there is still pathways to the NCAA Tournament and as long as there is a way, this tight-knit group of Aggie ballplayers maintain hope that the improbable could be achieved.

After all, getting swept by the lowest RPI ranked SEC team heading into the series seemed like an impossibility four days ago.

“The word hope is so funny,” Schott said. “There’s [always hope] until we pack up our crap for the last time, to be honest with you. I can’t speak for everyone, but I know that there’s a a good core group of guys that hope doesn’t fade until someone tells us we’re done. So, now it’s try and soak in what this place meant to us.”

As has been redundantly stated, 13 SEC wins is typically the magic number for making the NCAA Tournament field. Since 1999, 38% of SEC teams that reach that mark have made the bracket. Of those teams, the ones that have an RPI ranking of 30 or less have punched their ticket 100% of the time.

Even just winning the series would have left the Aggies needing one win during next weekend’s regular season final series at Georgia, ranked No. 1 in RPI. Now, the Aggies will need to sweep the series to reach 13 wins. At minimum, they will need to win the series and hope it gives them a big enough RPI boost to earn them an at-large bid. Since 1999, three of 17 teams have made the NCAA Tournament with 12 conference wins. None with 11 or less teams have extended there season past the conference tournament.

“We’ve got to win,” head coach Michael Earley said after Sunday’s game. “There’s no secret about that. So, we’ll take it game by game and see where it ends up.”

For as unlucky as the Aggies have seemed to be this season, the schedule provided them with one last out, facing the top RPI team in the nation. Had the Aggies closed out their season at Mississippi State or South Carolina, their season would be all but over. When the Aggies took two games from No. 1 Tennessee earlier this year, they jumped from a ranking in the low 90s to the low 50s. Conversely, A&M went from No. 35 leading into this weekend’s series to No. 58 after dropping three games to No. 154 Missouri.

Then, there’s always winning the SEC Tournament, if they don’t want to sweat out an at-large bid. But, this Aggie squad hasn’t demonstrated it has the bullpen arms to make it through the grind of five straight games to win a title.

And, if the Aggies have hopes of taking either path to the NCAA Tournament, they are going to have to find an answer for the lack of situational hitting that has plagued the program at times this season. On Sunday, the Aggies were 2-for-10 in advancement opportunities, though they only mustered two hits and six base runners (not including Caden Sorrell’s home run).

In the series, the Aggies were 9-for-36 in advancement opportunities. Missouri, on the other hand, went 33-for-69 in advancement opportunities, despite entering the series with the SEC’s worst team batting average.

This A&M team is too dependent on the home run, which was demonstrated this weekend and in A&M’s three-game loss at Texas. The Aggies are going to have to find more ways to generate offense — via a better approach at the plate — if they want to have a chance at the postseason or make any kind of run.

“There’s no drill for situational hitting,” Schott said. “I think that comes down to competitiveness, grittiness and just sticking to your same routine when there’s people on base, maybe when the pressure is a little bit higher. Easier said than done, but there’s no cage routine for practicing with runners in scoring position. It’s just competitiveness, almost like a sacrifice like, ‘Hey, you’re doing it for the guys in the dugout.’”

While hope seemed all but lost as fans trickled out of Blue Bell Park Sunday, a glimmer still exists. It’s now up to the Aggies to take it, though the stakes and the challenge have been drastically raised.

KBTX senior Texas A&M sportswriter Travis L. Brown can be reached via email at [email protected].