Blue Raiders turn out the lights on Ragin' Cajuns post season Sunbelt title quest
<blockquote><p align=justify>MIAMI - Midway through Friday night's late game at the Sun Belt Conference Baseball Championships, a campus-wide power surge killed the lights at Florida International's University Park Field.
It was almost fitting, because Middle Tennessee's Blue Raiders had by that point killed off any hopes that Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns had of winning the league tournament.
Time and again in the first four innings, the Cajuns mounted threats, only to watch as the Raider defense turned double plays time and time again and stranded UL baserunners in scoring position.
That, and the Cajuns' inability to get timely hits, eventually resulted in a 7-5 loss to the Raiders that eliminated top-seeded UL from the double-elimination event at about 12:15 a.m. on Saturday.
Middle Tennessee (32-22) advanced to today's 11 a.m. (CDT) championship game against South Alabama, which ended New Orleans' run with a 14-6 win in Friday's late afternoon game. The winner of that game earns the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
The Cajuns (47-17), meanwhile, are assured of a spot in the NCAA's as an at-large selection and will learn their fate Monday morning when the 16-regional, 64-team bracket is announced.
UL had survived into the Friday late game with a 6-4 11-inning victory over Western Kentucky after splitting games on the tournament's first two days. UL rallied from a 4-3 deficit to win that game, and staged another rally late Friday night with two eighth-inning runs, the second on Josh Landry's single that plated Jameson Parker.
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Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com <!--
But that was as close as it got as reliever Allen Woodward got Justin Merendino to fly out to end the threat.
Cajun senior righthander Kevin Ardoin (10-4), who had struggled in each of his last three starts, allowed eight hits and six earned runs in five innings. He fanned seven and walked five, but was victimized by bad breaks on bloop hits early.
The Blue Raiders strung together four of those hits off Ardoin in the second inning, only one of them hard-hit but all of them effective after Nathan Hines drew a leadoff walk and went to second on a wild pitch. Adam Warren singled him home, and after Jeff Beachum's single and another wild pitch, Josh Archer flared a single into short left field that scored both runners for a 3-0 lead.
Eric McNamee then doubled into the gap in right-center and Archer scored all the way from first base for the four-run advantage.
Two innings later McNamee blooped another single into right field, and Todd Martin followed with a towering drive that narrowly cleared the right-center wall to up the advantage to 6-0.
Meanwhile, everything that could go wrong for the Cajuns offensively did go wrong.
Cajun senior righthander Kevin Ardoin (10-4), who had struggled in each of his last three starts, allowed eight hits and six earned runs in five innings. He fanned seven and walked five, but was victimized by bad breaks on bloop hits early.
The Blue Raiders strung together four of those hits off Ardoin in the second inning, only one of them hard-hit but all of them effective after Nathan Hines drew a leadoff walk and went to second on a wild pitch. Adam Warren singled him home, and after Jeff Beachum's single and another wild pitch, Josh Archer flared a single into short left field that scored both runners for a 3-0 lead.
Eric McNamee then doubled into the gap in right-center and Archer scored all the way from first base for the four-run advantage.
Two innings later McNamee blooped another single into right field, and Todd Martin followed with a towering drive that narrowly cleared the right-center wall to up the advantage to 6-0.
Meanwhile, everything that could go wrong for the Cajuns offensively did go wrong.
John Coker led off the game with a bunt single but was doubled up. UL had runners at first and third with one out in the second and Alex Preciado sent a hard ground ball up the middle, but MT starter Tyler Copeland got a glove on it and trapped Dallas Morris off third base. The Cajuns then loaded the bases only to have Parker ground into a double play.
One inning later the Cajuns finally got to Copeland on three straight one-out hits by Morris, Jonathan Lucroy and Preciado. Copeland then hit Jefferies Tatford to load the bases and forced in a second run when he walked Parker.
However, reliever Kyler Wetherington forced Adam Massiatte to ground into Middle's third double play turned in four innings, moments before the power failure.
UL took advantage of some wildness by the Raider bullpen in the fifth, with two walks and a wild pitch by reliever Kyler Wetherington resulting in a run on Merendino's infield grounder. But once again the Cajuns left runners in scoring position when Aaron Wallus fanned Lucroy and forced an inning-ending grounder from Preciado.
Middle added to its advantage with an unearned run in the sixth. Cajun reliever Brandt Sanders did not allow any more runs, but the Raiders were able to piece together four relievers' efforts to hang on for the win. The fourth reliever, Josh Anderson (2-3), got credit for the win after getting four outs in the sixth and seventh innings.
Louisiana 6, Western Kentucky 4 (11
innings)
The Cajuns stayed alive in the Sun Belt tournament - barely - in Friday's earlier game, thanks to an 11th-inning home run by Parker and a clutch relief pitching effort from Micah Cockrell that produced a 6-4 win over Western Kentucky.
Cockrell did not allow a run over five and two-thirds innings of work, and picked up the win when Parker laced his first collegiate home run, a two-run shot with one out in the top of the 11th inning that broke a 4-4 tie and eliminated the Hilltoppers (21-37).
"We grinded it out today, but so did they," Cajun coach Tony Robichaux said. "Their record's not indicative of the kind of club they are. They're a very good baseball team."
The 'Toppers got a first-inning run on Jordan Newton's two-out RBI double, but the Cajuns seized the lead with five singles in the second that resulted in three runs. Tatford, Parker and Coker had successive RBI singles off WKU starter J. C. Faircloth to make it 3-1.
UL starter Hunter Moody gave up only three hits through five innings before running into trouble in the sixth, with Marcus Ross' RBI double and run-scoring singles by Casey Hamilton and Eric Scriven giving WKU a 4-3 lead. Cockrell (5-4) came on and allowed Scriven's hit, but stranded eight runners over the final five innings.
UL tied the game in the eighth when Merendino walked and pinch hitter John McCarthy lifted a one-out sacrifice fly off reliever Miles Ormon. Ormon (1-4) allowed only two hits the rest of the way, but one was Parker's game-winner, and Cockrell got three outs after a leadoff single by Tim Grogan in the bottom of the 11th inning.
"That's a compliment to coach Robichaux and his club," said WKU coach Joel Murrie, who announced his retirement earlier this year after a 26-year career. "They compete every day on the field, and I think these last couple of games will get them back on track for next week (in the NCAA Tournament)."
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Re: Blue Raiders turn out the lights on Ragin' Cajuns post season Sunbelt title quest
Now at least 2 sun belt teams will make the ncaa regional tourney.
