HAMMOND — While Southeastern right-hander Tate Scioneaux was drafted last month by Major League Baseball’s Pittsburgh Pirates, he will return to college next season for his senior season.

The pitcher, he says, has some unfinished business to attend to.

Scioneaux, a Riverside alum, has done nothing but succeed for the Lions over his collegiate career, his junior season representing its apex so far. He helped lead SLU to a 42-17 record and the school’s first ever Southland Conference championship—the latter made official on Scioneaux’s complete game shutout of UNO.

That game marked his third straight shutout performance.

“Our team had no ‘I’ guys,” Scioneaux said. “All guys cared about was winning. Everyone bought in and as a result we earned a lot of success.”

Scioneaux finished his junior season with a 9-3 record, a 2.53 ERA and 96 strikeouts in 110.1 innings pitched. He was part of a pitching staff that dominated all season long; as a team, SLU finished with a 3.18 ERA, while three starters earned nine wins or more.

“It was one of the best pitching staffs I’ve ever been a part of,” Scioneaux said. “Every spot, the Friday, Saturday, Sunday starter, you knew you were set. Then, we had a great bullpen and a strong defense. It was unbelievable.”

Scioneaux has appeared in 47 games as a Lion, 46 of them as starter. He’s never finished with an ERA higher than 3.72, and last season he earned All-Conference honors for the first time.

It’s a run that almost didn’t happen. Former Riverside coach Matt White, who coached Scioneaux during his time at the school, said Scioneaux envisioned a different path to the collegiate diamond.

“He really wanted to be a catcher,” White said. “He didn’t like pitching as much, and he wanted to concentrate on catching. He went up to Southeastern (for a camp) and it didn’t work out, and we went back to the drawing board. I told him, ‘Let’s get your velocity up,’ and they’ll come after you as a pitcher.”

It didn’t take long.

“One of his very first games after that, man, he goes out there and he’s hitting 91 (miles per hour) on the gun in 45 degree weather. And from there the phone never stopped ringing.

“We looked around and we talked about how rosters are made up at the next level and in the pros. You see one catcher, one shortstop, but a staff full of pitchers. He bought in, and it’s really worked out.”

While Scioneaux was always a talented and tough pitcher with the Rebels, he soared in that senior season. It culminated with one of the most memorable victories in Riverside history: Scioneaux led the Rebels to a Class 2A semifinal upset of top-seeded Evangel in Monroe in 2012, pitching a two-hitter en route to a 3-1 victory. Against an Eagles team boasting four Division I signees , Scioneaux controlled the action from start to finish.

It encapsulated how much Scioneaux had grown as a pitcher in a year’s time. In 2011, Evangel knocked Riverside out of the state quarterfinals, chasing Scioneaux after building a quick 9-1 lead.

A season later, he was silencing the bats of a team that entered the semifinals having scored 82 runs over its previous five games, including three playoff contests.

“That’s just who Tate is,” White said. “He’s a warrior, a bulldog.”

On that season, he went 10-3 with a 0.55 ERA, never allowing more than four runs in a game.

Scioneaux said he’s grown over his time at Southeastern; in his freshmen days, he learned the ropes from his upperclassmen, and he now teaches them himself as a senior.

When he’s on the mound, he says, his mentality guides him.

“I go out there with the mindset that nobody can touch me,” Scioneaux said.

The Pirates selected him in the 39th round of the draft, but Scioneaux said he isn’t quite ready to leave the Lions behind.

“ It’s a great honor (to be drafted), and it’s been one of the biggest decisions of my life,” he said. “I feel like we’re doing something special here, and I want to finish. It doesn’t feel right to leave and pass up my senior year.”

Scioneaux has already cast a large presence in the SLU pitching record book.

By the time he’s finished, he may own it. Already the program’s all-time leader in innings pitched, Scioneaux has the third most wins (23) and second most strikeouts (260) in team history.

“It’s something that’s always in the back of your mind, breaking records, but you just have to put it aside,” Scioneaux said. “These are things I couldn’t do without the teammates I have here. You put it behind you so you can look ahead to what you’ve got to do next.”