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BOWLING GREEN, Ky. - It wasn't quite the way the University of Louisiana baseball team expected its opening game in the Sun Belt Conference baseball tournament to go.
An opposing team collected 11 hits, including three home runs, off Sun Belt co-Pitcher of the Year Hunter Moody, and the Cajuns didn't get a hit from anyone below the number four spot in the lineup.
But they're not going to throw one back, and because of the hot bat of Jonathan Lucroy and the pitching of Danny Farquhar, UL is unbeaten in the tournament and on to the second round.
Lucroy was responsible for six runs, including a first-inning grand-slam homer, and Farquhar threw four innings of one-hit relief as the Cajuns survived in an 8-7 nail-biter against seventh-seeded Arkansas State here Wednesday afternoon.
"Give them (ASU) a lot of credit," said Cajun coach Tony Robichaux. "They put a lot of good swings on Hunter, and not many teams have chased him.
"The only thing that brought us back was Luke's grand-slam and that Danny was able to keep them right there."
<center><p><a href="http://www.theadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060525/SPORTS/605250342/1006" target="_blank">The rest of the story</a>
Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com
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The second-seeded Cajuns (38-18) put up six runs in the first two innings off ASU starter Nathan Gates, and held on the rest of the way to advance to today's 4 p.m. contest against Middle Tennessee. The Blue Raiders pulled off the tournament's first upset, knocking off third-seeded South Alabama 5-3 in 10 innings in Wednesday's opener.
Arkansas State (22-29) came tantalizingly close to making it two upsets in a row, using home runs in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings to slice the margin to one run. Right after the last of those, a left-field shot by Indian designated hitter Todd Boucher to lead off the sixth inning, Robichaux called on Farquhar.
"With Hunter throwing, I was figuring on maybe one inning and closing a couple of games," said Farquhar, who gave up only a one-out double to ASU catcher Josh Yates over the final four innings.
Farquhar walked the first batter he faced but got out of the inning with a double play, and then worked out of a bases-loaded jam in the seventh by striking out Boucher. He then retired the last six batters he faced.
ASU, which meets South Alabama in today's 9 a.m. elimination game, tallied three times before most fans found their seats. RBI doubles by Brett Kinning and Kevin Kull and a bad-hop RBI single by Michael Williams provided those three runs.
Later, Josh Allison launched his first home run of the year in the fourth inning, and Kull had a two-run shot in the fifth to make it 8-6 before Boucher's homer cut the margin to one lone run.
Moody ended up allowing a season-high hit total along with seven earned runs, easily the most he'd surrendered all year.
"I probably should have called more up and in," Lucroy said. "They came out swinging and were really aggressive, and they were diving out. We let them have the outside corner ... we should have busted in more."
"As long as we had the lead we were trying to milk Hunter and save Farquhar as much as we could," Robichaux said. "But ASU put some good swings on him. They forced Hunter to pitch backwards, to work back inside, and that's just not him. But all year, he's been very good at not letting games get away from him."
Moody got a lot of help from Lucroy, who followed a leadoff walk to John McCarthy and ground-ball singles by Jameson Parker and Devery Van De Keere by pounding Gates' second pitch over the tall left-field wall to put UL up 4-3 after four batters.
"I just got lucky," Lucroy said. "It was a bad pitch to me, an 0-1 change that he left up, and I got lucky that he left it up to me. But it wouldn't have happened if those guys hadn't gotten on base before me."
"We've been a struggling team," said ASU coach Keith Kessinger, whose squad had lost five of its last six. "For us to put up a three-spot was bug, but then we're behind before we even get an out."
Parker, who had not played for two weeks after spraining an ankle against Middle Tennessee, followed one inning later with his second homer of the year after Devon Bourque's leadoff walk.
That chased Gates, but ASU reliever Brian Schuck came with an array of off-speed pitches that thoroughly frustrated most of the Cajun lineup. Except, that is, for Lucroy, who followed one-out singles by McCarthy and Parker with a two-out double off the left-field wall that boosted the margin to 8-4.
"We felt like if we ever felt behind," Robichaux said, "that we couldn't catch up the way he (Schuck) was throwing. We didn't want to have to come from behind on him."
Schuck didn't give up a hit after Lucroy's double, but Farquhar made that lead hold up for his third save of the year.
"They were hitting the fast ball," Farquhar said, "but it seemed like they couldn't hit the off-speed. I just tried to come in and throw strikes, and not worry about what their hitters are doing."
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