That CWS was now four years ago. The program has not been strengthened at all from that experience. It looks like it may have been a flash in the pan type thing. I for one am not encouraged at all by this season.
GEAUX CAJUNS
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That CWS was now four years ago. The program has not been strengthened at all from that experience. It looks like it may have been a flash in the pan type thing. I for one am not encouraged at all by this season.
GEAUX CAJUNS
<blockquote><p align=justify>MOBILE, Ala. — South Alabama did what a four-time conference baseball champion is supposed to do here Sunday afternoon — take advantage of opportunities.
The Jaguars scored in all but two innings and plated eight of their 10 runs after two batters were out, and that was enough for a 10-7 victory over UL Lafayette in the Sun Belt Conference and regular-season finale for both teams.
The Jaguars (29-26, 16-8) had to settle for a share of the league title even with Sunday’s win since Middle Tennessee also won its season finale, and USA will be the number two seed for the league tournament that begins Wednesday here at Stanky Field.
The Cajun squad (31-21, 11-11), as it turned out, could not have affected its seeding one way or the other regardless of Sunday’s outcome. UL Lafayette is the fourth-seeded team for the eight-team tournament and will meet New Mexico State at 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday in their first-round game.
But Cajun head coach Tony Robichaux wasn’t as concerned about his team’s seeding as its performance Sunday.
“The early runs they scored, we basically gave them,” Robichaux said, “and you can’t give people runs on Sunday ... or any day. We gave up too many runs early in the game.”
USA, which has won or shared the league title every year since 2001, scored two runs in both the first and third innings after the Cajuns had bolted out to a 3-0 first-inning edge courtesy of Phillip Hawke’s RBI single and Rhett Buras’ two-run homer.
Cajun starter Ian Pecoraro couldn’t make that lead hold up, walking two batters in the first including one with the bases loaded and then being touched for a walk, a wild pitch, an RBI single and the first of Jansen Rayborn’s two doubles.
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Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@lafayette.gannett.com <!--
The Jaguars then scored single runs in the fourth and fifth on solo homers, added a run in the sixth and then got the three game-winners in the seventh on three hits and a crucial error on third baseman Justin Bourque.
In all of those innings, the only USA run that didn’t score after two were out was on Josh Touchstone’s leadoff homer in the fifth off Cajun reliever Brandt Sanders.
“To be successful, you’ve got to hit with two strikes and hit with two outs,” USA coach Steve Kittrell said. “We got a lot of big hits when we had to have them, and we really had to have them because it was such a see-saw battle.”
USA starter Jeramy Simmons (9-4) went seven innings and fanned 13 Cajun hitters, but it was still tied at 7-7 before the Jaguars’ seventh-inning uprising. And most of the Cajun total came courtesy of the long ball.
In addition to Buras’ first-inning moon shot — the third straight day in which he’d homered in his first at-bat — Bourque had a two-run homer in the fifth inning that gave the Cajuns a 6-5 lead and a solo shot in the seventh that tied the game at 7.
It was also Bourque’s third homer of the series and part of a total of 10 home runs hit by the Cajuns in the three-game series. UL Lafayette had five in Friday’s 10-8 loss and two in the 14-6 Saturday win.
“Our hitters came out and did a good job again,” Robichaux said. “They got us on the board first. But the bottom line was that in three days we had one good pitching performance and we have one win to show for it.”
Pecoraro walked two in the first inning sandwiched around two hits, and his bases-loaded pass to Quendon Montgomery and Rayborn’s following sacrifice fly cut UL Lafayette’s early margin to 3-2.
Bourque’s ground ball plated Landry in the third inning to make it 4-2, but USA tied it in the bottom of that inning on Montgomery’s single and Rayborn’s double and then took the lead on Brad Gordon’s two-out homer in the fourth.
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<blockquote><p align=justify>MOBILE, Ala. — The MASH unit that Louisiana's baseball team is rapidly becoming will limp into this week’s Sun Belt Conference Tournament with a lot of questions looking for answers.
The Ragin’ Cajuns open play in the league’s postseason event Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. against New Mexico State, knowing that winning the tournament is almost certainly its only path to NCAA postseason play.
That’s the biggest question, but there are many other concerns for coach Tony Robichaux as the Cajuns (31-21, 11-11 Sun Belt) head into the league meet at South Alabama’s Stanky Field as the number four seed against fifth-seeded NMSU (32-23-1, 12-12).
The foremost worry is injuries. The Cajuns have been without starting third baseman Dallas Morris since May 2 when he suffered a lower leg injury rounding second against New Orleans. Perhaps not by coincidence, UL Lafayette has won only one conference game since that date, going 1-5.
Morris is sidelined the rest of the year unless the Cajuns make a deep run into the NCAA Tournament, and is the most serious of the hurts. But several others beset the squad over the past weekend in the regular-season finale series here against South Alabama.
“That’s what happens when you play hard and go to war,” Robichaux said. “You have casualties when you play hard and we played hard. Now we have to suck it up and move on.”
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Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@lafayette.gannett.com <!--
The question is whether infielder Justin Bourque will be able to move on. The senior and Teurlings Catholic product — who missed three weeks with complications from a staph infection and only returned to full-time duty last weekend — suffered a knee injury in the eighth inning of Sunday’s 10-7 loss.
It appeared at first that Bourque would be able to remain in the game, but about the time that attendants had returned to the dugout he crumpled in pain again and had to be helped off the field. His status for Wednesday’s opener is still uncertain.
“We’re evaluating him,” Robichaux said. “He’ll probably be day-to-day and we’ll see how he responds.”
Bourque had responded in a big way with his bat, poking two homers on Sunday and three for the weekend, equaling his season total. But he also struggled with four errors in the three games in his return to full-time duty.
The Cajuns are short on infielders already with Morris’ absence, and it didn’t help that second baseman Justin Merendino fouled a ball off his knee on Saturday and missed the rest of that game and Sunday’s finale. Then, senior Brad Saloom fouled a pitch off his foot late in Sunday’s game.
Outfielder Jason Rodriguez was not on the weekend roster after failing to meet team academic requirements. It is still uncertain if Rodriguez, who is eligible by NCAA standards — but not by the team’s —, will be a part of the 25-man roster for the tournament.
The Cajuns had their NCAA-mandated day off Monday and were scheduled to get in a weight training session today as well as their one-hour pre-tournament practice at noon at Stanky Field. The squad also had a lifting session after Sunday afternoon’s game.
“We need to get tougher, and maybe that will help us,” Robichaux said.
New Mexico State had its open weekend in conference play at the end, and the Aggies will go into Wednesday’s game having not played in seven days since non-conference losses to Texas Tech (20-3) and Arizona State (12-5).
“The advantage they have is, while we had to fight a very tough team in a weekend series, they were off,” Robichaux said. “They’ll come in rested. On the other hand, hopefully the wear and tear and the battle we had last weekend, hopefully we can come right back out on Wednesday and keep battling.”
LAGNIAPPE: The Cajuns did not return home after Sunday’s game, remaining in their Mobile hotel since the spring semester has already finished and avoiding what would have been an early-morning return trip today ... All eight squads are allotted one hour of practice time today at Stanky Field, those slots beginning at 8 a.m. with eighth-seeded Arkansas State ... The All-Sun Belt team will be announced tonight at a pre-tournament banquet to be held at the Battleship USS Alabama which is docked in Mobile Bay.
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<blockquote><p align=justify>Mobile, Ala. - Louisiana’s Ragin’ Cajuns Baseball team will enter this year’s Dodge Sun Belt Conference Tournament as the Number 4 seed and play fifth seeded New Mexico State in round one. The Tournament starts tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. with Louisiana and New Mexico State playing at 3:30 p.m. at South Alabama’s Stanky Field.
The Cajuns will be without the services of INF/DH Justin Bourque in this year’s tournament. Bourque suffered a torn ACL in Sunday’s game against South Alabama on a knee-to-knee collision with the third base umpire. Infielder Jeffries Tatford will drive in from Lafayette and take Bourque’s place on the 25-man roster.
Fans can follow the Ragin’ Cajuns in the Dodge Sun Belt Conference Baseball Tournament on ESPNRadio 1420 AM or by logging on to www.ragincajuns.com and clicking on the “listen live “ icon on the homepage.
Fans can also view the standings and tournament bracket at www.sunbeltsports.com.
<center><b><i>LOUISIANA SI
<center><table cellspacing=1><TR ALIGN=CENTER><td class="s2"><b>FINAL CONFERENCE STANDINGS</b></TR></TABLE><TABLE border=1 cellPadding=2 cellSpacing=1><TBODY><TR ALIGN=CENTER><td colspan=2><center>Standings</td><td colspan=4><center><b>SUNBELT</td><td colspan=5><center>OVERALL</td><tr><td class="s2"><b>Seed</b></TD><TD><center><b>TEAM</b></TD><TD><b>W</b></TD><TD><b>L</b></TD><TD><b>PCT.</b></TD><TD><b>STK.</b></TD><TD><b>W</b></TD><TD><b>L</b></TD><TD><b>T</b></TD><TD><b>PCT.</b></TD><TD><b>STK.</b></TD><TR ALIGN=CENTER><TD>1</TD><TD>*Middle Tennessee</TD><TD>16</TD><TD>8</TD><TD>.667</TD><TD>W8</TD><TD>37</TD><TD>18</TD><TD>0</TD><TD>.673</TD><TD>W3</TD><TR ALIGN=CENTER><TD>2</TD><TD>*South Alabama</TD><TD>16</TD><TD>8</TD><TD>.667</TD><TD>W1</TD><TD>29</TD><TD>26</TD><TD>0</TD><TD>.527</TD><TD>W1</TD><TR ALIGN=CENTER><TD>3</TD><TD>New Orleans</TD><TD>13</TD><TD>10</TD><TD>.565</TD><TD>L1</TD><TD>27</TD><TD>26</TD><TD>0</TD><TD>.509</TD><TD>L1</TD><TR ALIGN=CENTER><TD>4</TD><TD><b>Louisiana</TD><TD>11</TD><TD>11</TD><TD>.500</TD><TD>L1</TD><TD>31</TD><TD>21</TD><TD>0</TD><TD>.596</TD><TD>L1</TD><TR ALIGN=CENTER><TD>5</TD><TD>New Mexico State</TD><TD>12</TD><TD>12</TD><TD>.500</TD><TD>L3</TD><TD>32</TD><TD>23</TD><TD>1</TD><TD>.580</TD><TD>L5</TD><TR ALIGN=CENTER><TD>6</TD><TD>Florida International</TD><TD>12</TD><TD>12</TD><TD>.500</TD><TD>W2</TD><TD>27</TD><TD>31</TD><TD>0</TD><TD>.466</TD><TD>W2</TD><TR ALIGN=CENTER><TD>7</TD><TD>Western Kentucky</TD><TD>12</TD><TD>12</TD><TD>.500</TD><TD>W1</TD><TD>30</TD><TD>26</TD><TD>0</TD><TD>.536</TD><TD>W1</TD><TR ALIGN=CENTER><TD>8</TD><TD>Arkansas State</TD><TD>8</TD><TD>15</TD><TD>.348</TD><TD>L2</TD><TD>29</TD><TD>26</TD><TD>0</TD><TD>.527</TD><TD>L2</TD><TR ALIGN=CENTER><TD>#</TD><TD>Arkansas-Little Rock</TD><TD>6</TD><TD>18</TD><TD>.250</TD><TD>L6</TD><TD>16</TD><TD>32</TD><TD>0</TD><TD>.333</TD><TD>L7</TD><tr><td colspan=11><center>* Co Champs # Did not make tournament</td></TABLE><b><i>LOUISIANA SI
<blockquote><p align=justify><b>Sun Belt honors Bourque</b><i>
Teurlings Catholic product was only Cajun on the first team</i>
MOBILE, Ala. — The biggest issue for Louisiana’s baseball team entering the Sun Belt Conference tournament is reflected in the All-Sun Belt team announced here Tuesday night.
For only the second time since 1997, a period spanning most of Tony Robichaux’s Cajun coaching career, his squad does not have a pitcher on either the first or second team.
“That tells you something,” Robichaux said at Tuesday’s pre-tournament social and banquet. “We’ve got to get tougher on the mound. We’ll only go as far as we can pitch.”
The Cajuns were better represented elsewhere on the all-conference first and second teams selected by the league coaches. UL Lafayette had one first-team pick, senior designated hitter Justin Bourque, and three selections to the second team — catcher Ryan Core, first baseman Phillip Hawke and third baseman Dallas Morris.
Only one other school matched that figure, with league co-champion and tournament No. 1 seed Middle Tennessee putting four on the first team and five on the overall squad. New Orleans and No. 7 seed Western Kentucky each had three picks with two on the first team and New Mexico State, the Cajuns’ opponent in today’s 3:30 p.m. opener, had one first-teamer and three picks overall.
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Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@lafayette.gannett.com <!--
Surprisingly, co-champion, No. 2 seed and tournament host South Alabama had only two players on the squad — outfielder Adam Lind on the first team and pitcher P.J. Walters on the second team.
“The league is just so balanced,” said NMSU coach Rocky Ward, whose squad had only returning league player of the year Billy Becher on the first team. “So many players had solid seasons, and there wasn’t a weekend that you could save anyone because everybody was scrambling for places and seeds all year.”
Becher, the national leader in home runs (24) and RBI (88) entering the tournament, did not make it two Player of the Year awards in a row. That award went in a surprise to Western Kentucky outfielder Matt Gunning, who was fourth in the league in hitting (.382), first in hits (89), second in RBI (72) and fourth in homers (15) for the seventh-seeded Hilltoppers.
Five different schools grabbed the five top individual honors, with Golden Spikes award watch list member Thomas Diamond of New Orleans (6-3, 2.38) named Pitcher of the Year, Florida International second baseman Xardiel Cotto (.400) the Newcomer of the Year and Walters (10-1) the Freshman of the Year.
Middle Tennessee coach Steve Peterson, who led his team to a league-best 37-18 mark and the tournament’s top seed, was named Coach of the Year.
The Cajuns’ four selections if the most since the 2000 College World Series squad had six first-team and two second-team picks.
UL Lafayette had two first-team picks last year in now-departed outfielder Corey Coles and pitcher Jordy Templet, while Core was picked to the second team and becomes only the second Cajun since 2000 to be twice named to the all-league team.
Bourque hit .333 with six homers despite missing two Sun Belt series and three weekends overall with an injury. He was 20 points higher in his 19 Sun Belt games and had a .632 slugging mark in conference play.
Core rallied from a slow start to hit .266 overall and .313 in league play, Hawke led the team in conference play with a .397 average along with a .647 slugging mark and a team-leading .517 on-base percentage, and Morris hit a team-high .373 in the regular season and paced the squad in homers (12) and RBI (51) to win the team “triple crown” despite missing the final three weeks of the regular season with a leg injury.
Ironically, half of the Cajuns’ all-conference contingent will be out of action for this week’s tournament, with Morris and Bourque injured and not on the team’s 25-man roster.
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<blockquote><p align=justify>MOBILE, Ala. — Louisiana has history on its side, along with a weekend’s worth of experience at the tournament site.
But New Mexico State has a full squad, and a rested squad, and that could be a big advantage today when the Ragin’ Cajuns and the Aggies meet today in the opening round of the Dodge Sun Belt Conference Baseball Tournament.
The Cajuns (31-21) and the Aggies (32-23-1) are the fourth and fifth seeds in the eight-team double-elimination event, and play in today’s third tournament game at 3:30 p.m. at South Alabama’s Eddie Stanky Field.
No. 3 New Orleans and No. 6 Florida International kick off the tournament and the pursuit of the league’s automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament at 9:30 a.m. Top-seeded Middle Tennessee meets No. 8 Arkansas State at 12:30 p.m., and host and second-seeded South Alabama meets No. 7 Western Kentucky in today’s nightcap at 6:30 p.m.
The Cajun squad earned the No. 4 seed despite losing five of its last six and eight of its last 10 in Sun Belt play, including losing two of three here at Stanky Field in a season-ending series with USA.
But the Aggies haven’t fared much better, being swept in their final league series by that USA squad and entering the tournament on a five-game losing streak after non-conference losses to ranked foes Texas Tech (20-3) and Arizona State (12-5) last week.
New Mexico State had its open weekend in conference play at the end of the regular season, and the Aggies will go into today’s game having not played in seven days.
“To be honest, that should be a huge advantage for us,” said NMSU coach Rocky Ward. “We didn’t have to make any huge pitching decisions based on what we did over the past weekend. And the way this league was, nobody could save anybody. People were scrambling for seeds, and we should have all our arms and bodies rested.”
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Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@lafayette.gannett.com <!--
“The advantage they have is, while we had to fight a very tough team in a weekend series, they were off,” Cajun coach Tony Robichaux said. “They’ll come in rested. On the other hand, hopefully the wear and tear and the battle we had last weekend, hopefully we can come right back out on Wednesday and keep battling.”
That wear and tear in the final weekend had an effect. The Cajuns lost designated hitter-turned-infielder Justin Bourque to a torn ACL in Sunday’s finale against the Jaguars, and the second baseman tandem of Justin Merendino and Brad Saloom fouled pitches off their knee and ankle respectively. Merendino missed most of two weekend games.
Add those losses and walking wounded to the earlier loss of Dallas Morris to a leg injury, and the Cajuns go into the tournament woefully short on infielders.
“Those two guys (Morris and Bourque) are sorely missed,” Robichaux said. “When we don’t pitch well and two of our best offensive threats are out of the lineup, it doesn’t make the coach feel good about where we are.”
What Robichaux can feel good about is his lineup’s comfort level at Stanky Field. The Cajuns rapped out 37 hits including 18 for extra bases and 10 homers despite losing two of three to USA over the weekend. That effort helped UL Lafayette win the league’s team batting title (.307), just ahead of NMSU’s .305 mark.
The Aggies, though, had three of the league’s top five individuals in home runs, RBI, runs scored and total bases, and led the conference as a team in all four categories. Only once all season did NMSU score as few as 10 runs in a league series, and that came in Lafayette when the Cajuns swept a 11-1, 13-4, 9-5 series.
“This is a park that the ball does travel,” Robichaux said of Stanky Field, “and they (NMSU) hit a lot of fly-ball outs.’’
They could be dangerous in this park. We’ll have to pitch like we did the last time we played them at home and control their hitters with our pitchers, and keep hitting the way we did this weekend.”
“The park fits our game,” Ward said, “but the difference in this year and past years is that this has been a good defensive club. Our pitching numbers aren’t great, but a lot of that came from some non-conference games when our down-line guys didn’t throw well. That skewed our numbers some.”
The Cajuns didn’t help those Aggie pitching numbers in that early April series, which turned out to be UL Lafayette’s other 10-homer weekend. In those three games, the Cajuns hit .354 compared to NMSU’s .257, and the Aggie pitchers had an 11.25 ERA while the Cajun hurlers were at 2.67.
But over the last few weeks, the Cajuns’ pitching numbers haven’t been nearly as impressive.
“We pitched and we hit against them,” Robichaux said, “but we haven’t pitched the last two weekends like we’re capable. I don’t know if that’s something that we can fix in two days. Kevin (Ardoin) has to go out and pitch like a number one and Kraig (Schambough) has to be the reliever he can be if we’re going to advance.”
Ardoin (5-2, 3.45) threw a seven-hitter and allowed only one earned run in his earlier outing against the Aggies, a game in which he recorded 17 ground-ball outs.
“Their hitters take a lot of pitches and try to get the pitch counts up,” Ardoin said. “You have to stay ahead in the count early, get ahead and put their hitters in a defensive mode. I was using the fast ball to get ahead of them in the first game, sliders to finish the righthanders and the change to get their lefthanders to roll over.”
The Aggies, looking to match the high point in their baseball history when they swept four games to win the 2002 Sun Belt meet here at Stanky Field, will answer with righthander Brian Gausman (7-3, 5.04), who threw only three innings of mop-up relief in the finale of the Cajun series. He was NMSU’s short reliever before moving into the starting rotation in late April.
“I think we have enough pitching depth,” Ward said. “It’ll be a six-man rotation depending on the matchups, but you have to pretty much figure you’ve got to win the first game to win it all.”
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hey coach the pitchers are the ones you recruited, and coached. i am still a robe backer, but this team belongs to him in both the good and the bad. he needs to do a better job of evaluation and recruiting.
coach robe could also use a little help from the baseball gods. we have had way to many injuries to the pitching staff over the last 4 seasons. one has to wonder if we are doing anything that is leading to that.
Here is a quote from Kevin Garnet
"That’s what happens when you play hard and go to war,” Robichaux said. “You have casualties when you play hard and we played hard. Now we have to suck it up and move on."
Oh wait it's the baseball coach at UL-Laf sorry my mistake.
Suck it up and move on goofball :hot: you add nothing to the table.
Geaux Gators
Congrats to the Cajuns on the win and good luck againts Middle Tennesse State tomorrow!