Cockrell powers Cajuns

<! Micah Cockrell closed the door on Arkansas State's Indians Saturday with his arm. Sunday, he kicked the door in with his bat. -> #2# #3# <blockquote><p align=justify>JONESBORO, Ark. - Micah Cockrell closed the door on Arkansas State's Indians Saturday with his arm. Sunday, he kicked the door in with his bat.

Cockrell, whose relief effort Saturday helped give Louisiana's Ragin' Cajun baseball team a split of its Sun Belt Conference series with ASU, laced a grand-slam home run in the second inning Sunday, helping power the Cajuns to an 8-5 win and a 2-1 series victory.

Cockrell's slam, the Cajuns' fourth of the year, provided the visitors with a 4-1 edge and gave them the lead for good thanks to solid pitching and a second straight day of errorless defense.

And with Cockrell providing the offense, it became Thad Montgomery's turn to post a close-out relief effort. Montgomery pitched the final three and two-thirds innings, giving up only a two-out walk in the eighth inning for his second save.

"He really pitched big down the stretch," said Cajun coach Tony Robichaux, whose team won its second straight league series and is tied for the Sun Belt lead.

"Our bullpen did a good job for us today. They kept getting outs in a situation where we needed to get outs."

<center><p><a href="http://www.acadiananow.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050404/SPORTS/504040322/1006">The rest of the story</a><!--

Even with Cockrell's early blast, the Cajuns (25-6, 4-2) never held a comfortable lead after ASU (20-10, 2-4) came back with three runs of its own in the third inning off UL starter Buddy Glass.

Glass allowed eight hits - seven singles and a solo home run by Chris Rich in the third - in two and two-thirds innings before being relieved by Brandt Sanders.

Sanders gave up two hits in two and two-thirds innings of middle relief before Montgomery took over in the sixth.

"We had a couple of plays that we didn't make behind Buddy," Robichaux said, "but Brandt came in and did what we needed him to do, throw some zeros up there. Thad made some big pitches with his slider against some pull hitters. He did to them what they did to us Friday ... pitch big and get out of innings."

The Cajuns, who fell 6-2 in Friday's series opener before taking a 6-1 Saturday win, trailed 1-0 after Geoff Desmond's first-inning sacrifice fly.

But Jonathan Lucroy walked with one out in the second, Justin Morgan singled through the box and Phillip Hawke was hit by a pitch on a 1-2 count to load the bases for Cockrell, who hit a 1-2 fast ball from ASU starter Andrew Bishop (3-1) over the left-field wall for a 4-1 lead.

Lucroy's solo home run to lead off the third made it 5-1 before Rich's homer, three other hits and a ground-ball RBI cut the difference to 5-4. But that was as close as the Indians would get as Sanders allowed only one runner past first base in picking up his first win of the year.

season.

"They (ASU) ran some arms out there that did a good job," Robichaux said. "They made some errors along the way, and we were fortunate enough to get some runs at the end to take the bunt out. But anytime you pitch, you have a chance to win this league."

Singles by John Coker and Justin Merendino, an error and a Dallas Morris RBI single bumped the advantage to 7-4 in the sixth to offset Brett Kinning's RBI double in the bottom of that frame. The Cajuns then added a key run in the ninth when Morgan reached on a two-base throwing error by reliever Doug Walter and eventually scored on Cockrell's sacrifice fly.

The Cajuns return to action and play their fourth straight road game Wednesday when they face UL Monroe at 6:30 p.m. The next home outing for the Cajun squad is Friday at 6:30 p.m. in the opener of a three-game series with Texas-Pan American.
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