After a sluggish start Lamar edges Louisiana
<blockquote><p align=justify>LOUISIANA La. — UL baseball coach Tony Robichaux wanted his team to get back to playing real baseball, and Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns did that here Tuesday night.
Lamar’s Cardinals did it a little better.
The Cardinals rallied back from a 2-0 deficit, pushing across single runs in each of the last three innings and getting solid efforts from six different pitchers in taking a 4-3 decision over the Cajuns at Moore Field.
Lamar (18-6), ranked 28th in one national collegiate poll, plated its winning run in the top of the ninth inning on a wild pitch that scored pinch runner Joe Haney. The Cajuns had extended that inning on a misplay of a John-Austin Emmons bunt, but still were one out away from preserving a tie before a Thad Montgomery pitch eluded catcher Adam Massiatte.
“We had all the chances to break it open early and we didn’t do it,” said Robichaux, whose team lost for only the second time in 15 home games. “When you don’t do that, it forces you to play perfect at the end.”
The Cajuns (14-7) left nine runners on base in the last six innings and only added one run after getting two runs from their first four batters. That came in contrast to a weekend that saw UL Lafayette score 53 runs in three wins over Michigan and Harvard.
“We knew that we were going to have to play more real baseball than we did last weekend,” Robichaux said. “We knew Lamar was going to come with some good arms, but we had an opportunity to separate ourselves early.”
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Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@lafayette.gannett.com <!--
The Cajuns scored twice off Lamar starter Chris Buechner in the first when Justin Merendino reached on an error, Josh Landry tripled him home with a shot in the right-center gap and Phillip Hawke lifted a fly ball to left that plated Landry.
After that, though, a succession of Cardinal pitchers kept the Cajuns in check with the exception of the sixth inning when Hawke doubled and Justin Bourque singled with one out, Jason Rodriguez was hit by a pitch and Adam Massiatte drew a two-out walk that forced in a run.
Cajun first-time starter Ian Pecoraro, who had thrown only three innings all season, scattered five hits in six innings and allowed only a solo run in the fourth on Jordan Foster’s single and Ryan Finan’s RBI double in the right-center gap.
“Ian threw well,” Robichaux said. “He hadn’t thrown much, but he did a good job and gave us a chance to break it open. We knew we weren’t going to use (Kraig) Schambough or (Patrick) Green out of the pen and we wanted to get a look at some other guys.”
Reliever Brandt Sanders hit Michael Ambort with a pitch in the seventh, and an infield ground ball set up Emmons’ single to right that scored Ambort to make it 3-2. One inning later, Cajun reliever Jered Salazar surrendered two hits around a walk, with Ambort’s single scoring Foster with the tying run.
Salazar then walked John Allen to lead off the ninth, and Emmons’ bunt and a following sacrifice set the stage for the wild-pitch winner.
“You’ve got to get outs when you need them,” Robichaux said. “We made some plays that got us out of some situations.”
Kyle Stutes (4-0) got the win as the Cardinals’ fifth pitcher, and John Hunton threw the ninth inning for his sixth save. The Cajuns got a pair of one-out hits from Josh Landry and Dallas Morris before Phillip Hawke’s game-ending double-play grounder.
In fact, the Cajuns left runners in scoring position in each of the last three innings.
“We had some good at-bats at the end, but we didn’t have many early,” Robichaux said. “We just had too many bad at-bats strung together.”
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