Faught delivers big for Cajuns

<blockquote><p align=justify>MIAMI - When they were rolling through the first three months of the collegiate baseball season, Austin Faught was a key part of the success of Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns.

Over the past two weeks, when things have not gone so swimmingly for the squad, Faught has become more than a key. He's been the rock, the stabilizing influence, the stopper.

Twice in the last six days, he's been called on to help lead the Cajuns to the Sun Belt Conference regular-season title and to help keep the UL squad alive in the league's postseason tournament.

Both times he's come through.

And his teammates recognize those efforts.

"It's a lot easier to hit when you've got somebody pitching like that," said designated hitter Jonathan Lucroy. "With him out there, we know we're going to have momentum on our side."

The Sun Belt's Pitcher of the Year battled his way through a 72-minute rain and lightning delay here Thursday, keeping New Mexico State's big bats under control during a 9-5 victory that put the Cajuns into the tournament's third day.

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Ten of the 15 outs he recorded were strikeouts, tying a career high he set way back in 2002 when he was pitching for the University of Houston. He gave up only one hit through the first four innings before the Aggies tallied three times in the fifth, but by that time the Cajuns led 7-0 and were well on their way to atoning for Wednesday's 10-7 opener loss to Western Kentucky.

"We leaned on Austin again," said Cajun coach Tony Robichaux. "Every time we've lost a game, he's been able to come back and help us out."

The Cajuns were in a similar situation last weekend after losing the opening game of their season-ending series at Western Kentucky. UL needed a win to lock up the league's outright title, and Faught scattered six hits through seven innings in an 11-1 victory.

But Thursday may have been more of a challenge. With Faught breezing through the early innings and his teammates up 6-0, he had to wonder about his luck when tournament officials sent the teams to the bench midway through the fourth inning due to lightning.

"Delays always seem like they last forever," Faught said. "You get to the point that you just want to get back out there. It's hard to stay focused."

But after the delay and one more Cajun run, he headed back out and struck out the side in the bottom of the fourth to keep momentum in the UL dugout.

"We took a lot of pitches that we shouldn't have. We needed to be more aggressive," said NMSU coach Rocky Ward. "But he threw a couple of big pitches in key situations."

A second delay was too much to ask, with the final stoppage finally sending him to the bench after nearly four hours of throwing. But the tone of Thursday's game had already been set, and Faught had improved to a past-impressive 12-0.

"We'd had a similar situation this year against Middle Tennessee," Robichaux said, "and that was Austin's game. We were fortunate to have that kind of situation so we knew a little more how to handle it, and Austin came back out and got us back going."
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<blockquote><p align=justify>MIAMI - It took one of the seniors, Dallas Morris, to come up with the reason that Louisiana's Ragin' Cajun baseball team still has life in the Sun Belt Conference Baseball Championships.

"You have to be tougher than the situation," Morris said after the Cajuns took a 9-5 victory over New Mexico State here Thursday in an elimination game.

The situation was plenty tough for both teams, with a pair of rain delays that totaled nearly two hours and wreaked havoc with available pitching. But it was probably tougher for the top-seeded Cajuns, who were only hours removed from a disappointing 10-7 first-round loss to Western Kentucky late Wednesday night.

That's why coach Tony Robichaux probably gave an audible sigh of relief when his squad scored in each of the first four innings and held a 7-0 lead.

"We're not a very good team when we play from behind," Robichaux said. "I think we're 1-14 when we're behind after six innings, so that's not very good. It was important for us to get off to a good start."

The Cajuns (46-16) had the good start, and because of that they're into the third day of the double-elimination tournament at Florida International's University Park Stadium. And, now, it could be someone else that's in a tougher situation.

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UL is scheduled to face Western Kentucky loser in Thursday's 11:30 a.m. (CDT) elimination game. However, because of Thursday's rain delays, the MT-WKU game didn't begin until after 10 p.m. and figured to approach the tournament's 1 a.m. curfew time.

Even if that game was completed late Thursday night, the loser must turn around and play the Cajuns only 10 hours later.

The UL squad can appreciate that type of frustration after rolling out to a 6-0 edge and getting a dominating early performance from senior lefthander Austin Faught, only to wind up sitting through a 72-minute rain and lightning delay.

Faught (12-0) struck out 10 Aggie hitters in the first four innings and took a one-hitter into the fifth inning.

Then, after NMSU put together three runs on four hits in the fifth to cut the difference to 7-3, a 40-minute delay when the rains returned knocked Faught out of the game.

"When you have to keep going back to warm up, you have to stay focused," said Faught, who became the first Cajun hurler to reach 12-0 since Cody Robbins and Trey Poland both pulled that off in 1997. "I had full intentions of going back out there after the first delay. When you want to win, none of the rest matters."

After the second delay, Thad Montgomery kept the Aggies (28-29) at bay with a perfect sixth before Kraig Schambough picked up a save in scattering three hits and allowing one earned run over the final two and two-thirds innings.

"It may get a little covered up," Robichaux said, "but Thad gave us a big inning. He bridged the gap. We had decided as coaches that Scham would take it from the seventh on but not before because of the heat. We didn't want him to wear down."

What Robichaux did want was for his batters to wear down surprise Aggie starter Joseph Hampel, and those hitters responded with five hits and two runs in the first inning including RBI singles by Morris and Alex Preciado. John Coker added an RBI double in the second that scored Justin Morgan, and Jonathan Lucroy followed Morris' second hit with his fifth homer of the year in the third inning that made it 5-0 and chased Hampel.

Morris had another RBI single, the second of his four hits, in the fourth inning to make it a six-run game before lightning forced tournament officials to clear the field. Rain began falling 15 minutes later.

"The first delay was definitely an advantage for us," said Aggie coach Rocky Ward, whose team had a less-than-memorable final Sun Belt outing. "We were down 6-0, and the delay gave us a little breather and let us refocus. We came back and got the three runs that put some question into the game that wasn't there before."

Lucroy had an RBI single off NMSU reliever Brian Gausman on the first pitch after the resumption of play, and Faught struck out the side in the bottom of the fourth for the last of his UL-career high 10 strikeouts.

One inning later, though, Jason Long's double and three straight Aggie singles cracked the shutout and sliced the margin to 7-3. Less than 10 minutes later, the tarp came back out for a delay of 40 minutes.

"This one hurt us," Ward said. "We had some momentum. A lot of times baseball momentum is extremely subtle, but that point you felt like you were coming on."

The Cajuns added to their lead in the eighth on doubles by Jefferies Tatford and Josh Landry and Lucroy's sacrifice fly, providing much-needed space that covered NMSU's two-run rally in the bottom of the inning that included Brandon Lance's solo homer.

"We knew it would be a grind," Morris said, "and that we had to keep scoring runs. We stuck to our game plan, to get on top and build on that. That's the same approach we've had all year."
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